Heat cooks yields at Croppa Creek

Mr Densley (pictured) who owns the 1300-hectare property “Kedron”, Croppa Creek, planted about 260 hectares of sorghum and said, for the year it’s had, the crop has done “exceptionally well”.

“We got rain after we planted,” he said.

“It was a couple of light falls then it just stopped.”

His sorghum was sprayed last week and he’s aiming to harvest this week.

He’s hoping it will yield 2.5 tonnes a hectare.

“But going on other reports from people that have harvested, it’s not as good as it looks,” Mr Densley said.

Bellata grower Ben Penberthy’s 100ha of sorghum were more or less “cooked” in the heatwave.

Mr Penberthy planted a little less sorghum than usual on his 485ha property “Woolabra” back in September.

He said there was grain, but it was small.

“Most of it will probably go straight through the header and back into the ground.”

With the top temperature reaching 48 degrees Celsius, Mr Penberthy said it had a devastating impact and things weren’t looking too great on the farm.

“We got a bit of rain (about 23 millimetres) but I think it just dried straight away.”