TIMELY rain gave Havana Farming brothers, David and Jono Phelps, “Myola”, Wee Waa, an opportunity to plant dryland cotton this year.
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The brothers planted 1000 hectares of irrigated Bollgard 74 BRF cotton in October.
Following good rain in November, they were then able to plant a further 1000ha of dryland skip-row cotton in their remaining irrigation country.
In January, the Phelpses received more than 100 millimetres of rain.
Jono said this generated enough water to start irrigating the dryland crops towards the end of the season.
“It should get two waters now, as well as the in-crop rain it had,” he said.
Mr Phelps said their cotton was looking good and they were expecting yields of about 12 to 13 bales/ha, although it was still early days, with picking a while off yet.
The irrigated crops are starting to cut out now, but Mr Phelps said the later planted cotton was still powering along.
“We’ll start picking the first week of April,” he said.
