A challenging season on the North Coast delivered a dryland rice harvest that few people want to talk about, and yet the Tachiminori variety delivered enough of a result through heat and flood that interest in the rotation remains high.
Ron Du Frocq, Clovass via Casino, planted Tachiminori for the first time on peat soil flats and recovered five tonnes to the hectare, well short of what the variety might deliver in a good season - about 7t/ha. However any result is a bonus considering the crop ‘looked dead’ towards the end of February, after weeks of heat.
When the rains began in March they did so in earnest and Mr Du Frocq, who also grows soybeans in rotation, noted his rice improved overnight.
“The crop has a good role to play in rotation,” said BGA agronomist Dominic Hogg, who finished harvesting his own rice crop at Doubtful Creek on Tuesday.
The six week delay in getting the grain off the ground was purely the result of sharp dry conditions in February, at a time when the rice was in its critical stage of panicle initiation. Dormancy was followed by spectacular rain which, near Kyogle, did more good to rice than harm.
“Yield was just under 4t/ha when we expected 7t/ha but we had earlier written off the crop entirely,” said Mr Hogg highlighting the resilience of dryland rice under extreme conditions.
Just as important, the crop provided a disease and weed break for producers who normally grow summer soybeans.
Difficult to control broad leaf weeds like farmers’ friends and Noogoora burr were controlled with less expensive chemical during a rice phase which also reduced pressure on future beans from Crown Lucerne Borer, which overwinters in old soy stalks. A summer without the host will reduce the population to manageable levels. “A grass rotation in a legume system helps break the disease cycle,” reminds Mr Hogg.
While a poor season like the last will set the industry back Mr Hogg says there are expansion plans afoot, with trials as far west as Urbenville, 80km from the coast, where soybeans grow successfully on undulating hills. If rice proves profitable in that environment it could slot nicely into a chickpea rotation.
Meanwhile the stubble also holds value, and there is plenty of it. Dairy farmers like Jason Bake, Crossmaglen via Bonville, says it suits as feed because of its easy to digest low lignin count and much higher simple sugar levels, eight times greater than barley straw. “Cows just want to eat it,” he said.
Season like no other
The Johnny Appleseed of North Coast Tachiminori, Gary Woolley, Dungarubba, has seen bad seasons during his 15 years growing the crop in the Richmond Valley, but none so complex as the one just gone.
Dungarubba is one of the lowest of lowlands in the mid-Richmond but a sharp summer drought failed to insulate his rice from Februrary’s 40 degree days. The heat reduced yield at a crucial stage although when the rain arrived in mid March the cop rebounded. Sadly the second event, the great Lismore flood, caught Mr Woolley’s rice in flower. His 24 hectare paddock yielded nine tonnes when it should have grown 20 times that amount.
“I’ll grow rice again, certainly,” he said, before musing into the good reasons why the experimental crop might be avoided – how in seasons like this it creates a late harvest, compromising the winter’s plant. “Yes, I’ll grow rice,” he said. “But I just won’t count on it.”
Tony Carusi, at nearby Kilgin harvested one beautiful paddock as seen from the road, but beyond that the header could travel at speed. His property at Bungawalbyn received a major flood in early March, with the normally placid creek rising 10m in six hours, busting six metres of levy wall and spewing sediment-laden water over 1000 hectares of adjoining paddocks. Rice actually looked marketable after the first inundation but the two following floods had easy access and the crop never recovered.
Mr Carusi, one of two private label rice wholesalers in the valley, said his business would concentrate on existing customers with no temptation to expand at this point. His farm system also grows out cattle so damaged rice and its stubble are filling a critical role as some of his losses come full circle in the form of beef.