Sunflowers to brighten northern prospects

Mr Matthews said use of residual herbicides by some farmers on winter crops would also preclude the sowing this summer of susceptible crops such as sorghum and cotton.

But the loss of some northern chickpea crops from excessive rain could encourage some farmers to sow that ground to sorghum this coming summer where the herbicide issue allowed.

Cargill Australia’s merchant for sunflowers, cottonseed and soybeans Tom Curtain said sunflower plantings could also benefit in northern areas where farmers had missed winter crops. 

However, prices for new season sunflower seed were being affected by large European crops and were currently running at about $380 to $385 a tonne delivered Narrabri.

Willow Tree district farmer Joe Fleming expects to sow at least half his 2000 hectares of cropping area to sorghum this summer.

Mr Fleming manages two Parraweena Pastoral Company properties at Blackville, west of Willow Tree, that total about 9600ha.

One is for cattle and the other, “Parraweena”, is for grain growing.

Mr Fleming said “Parraweena”  had  a full soil moisture profile following useful rain, which would provide a good start to the summer cropping season.

He expects to sow about 200ha of the remaining cropping area to mung beans, but has yet to decide whether to sow the rest to dryland cotton or sunflowers.

“Last year was really good for mung beans,” he said.

“Prices have come back a bit but we could get $1000 to $1100 a tonne.”