Farmers on the New South Wales–Queensland border have gone from one extreme to the next, with the wettest start to the winter cropping season in a decade.
It has been too dry to plant winter crops in recent years, but this year paddocks are too saturated to be sown, as Goondiwindi-based agronomist Cameron Derbidge explains.
"It has been 10 years since we've had a first half of the year and a start to the winter crop like we're receiving at the moment," Mr Derbidge said.
The Goondiwindi region has already received 400 millimetres of rain this year, which is already two-thirds of its long-term annual average.
"It's shaping up to be quite a big winter," Mr Derbidge said.
One extreme to the next
Mr Derbidge said 90 per cent of the region's winter crops, such as wheat, barley and chickpeas, had been planted and was thriving thanks to consistent rain for the past few months.
ABARES' June winter crop forecast is predicting a national crop of 46.8 million tonnes in 2021–22, which is 15 per cent below the near-record high production last year but 13 per cent above the 10-year average.
Goondiwindi Regional Council area has been in drought since 2014, but its status was revoked by the Queensland government earlier this year.
Ian Webster — who farms north-west of the border town — said it was the best start to winter he had seen in many years.
"The mood has very much changed from 2019 to 2020. The mood is quite buoyant."
After heavy rainfall in the past week, Sunwater's Coolmunda Dam is at more than 103 per cent capacity and is spilling about 1,600 megalitres of water a day into the Macintyre Brook.
Too wet to plant
Mr Derbidge said the recent rain had also made the remaining paddocks yet to be sown too wet for machinery.
"It makes things hard for some growers, coming off the tough previous years they've had," he said.
"They potentially might be looking for a bit of cash flow so having a winter crop now would be ideal.
Mr Derbidge has heard reports of growers resorting to the less-common practice of aerial sowing.
"I've been a part of that once or twice before, and that's using planes to sow your crop," he said. "It can be done [but] it's a fairly big punt, and it's got to be desperate measures to do it."
South of the border, at the town of Inverell on the MacIntyre River, the issue of too much rain is more acute.
Inverell-based agronomist Ashley Faint said about 70 per cent of the area was unable to be sown because of heavy rainfall.
"We don't want to go back to where it was 18 months ago," Mr Faint said.
"What has been planted is suffering a little bit. The soil is very anaerobic and can't breathe, so the crop isn't bouncing out of the ground like it normally would."
A weather station at Inverell has recorded more than 900 millimetres so far this year, which already several hundred millimetres more than the annual average.
The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting above-median rainfall for July to September, which will be key growing months for the winter crop.
