WITH in-crop rain now at about 80 milimetres, the chance of Andrew Crowe, “Sunbury”, Garah, getting a harvest looks much more promising than it did a month ago.
This year, with such dry conditions, Mr Crowe only planted half of Baudin barley he normally would, which was sown in the middle of May.
Diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertiliser was applied at the beginning of the season, but Mr Crowe said this year’s season would best be described as difficult, despite rain in the past two weeks brightening the outlook.
“Our fortunes have only just turned around here in the past two weeks,” he said.
“We are currently looking like we might have a harvest, but prior to the rain, there were large areas looking like they wouldn’t come off.”
Mr Crowe has a large amount of on-farm storage, which he is hoping will be used to store all of his barley crop.
Having on-farm storage has meant Mr Crowe has been able to try and make a business out of his grain production.
“We’re trying to service our customers better,” he said.
With rain only recently reviving his crop, Mr Crowe said he hadn’t looked too far into prices for the year, but wasn’t traditionally a forward seller.
“I’ve just been concentrating on trying to grow the crop here.”
