A NEAR-RECORD wet summer has provided ideal growing conditions for producers on the Liverpool Plains in the state's North West.
Cotton and corn crops continue to thrive but sorghum is arguably stealing the show.
A sea of the copper-coloured plants stretches in all directions including at Spring Ridge where Jim Russell has planted 200 hectares of Pacific Seeds' Taurus variety on his property Andamooka, as well as a further 220ha of Barenbrug's HG-114 variety on his nearby property, Neiluan.
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The Taurus crop was planted on November 7, while the HG-114 went in around mid-October and Mr Russell is hoping both crops can yield about five tonnes per hectare or more.
"The 114 had more sub-soil moisture and longer fallow to begin with, but it had the same in-crop rain as the Tarus, which was 110mm," Mr Russell told The Land.
"The Tarus crop will be a few more weeks away from being ready for harvest, maybe sometime in late March.
"All told, it should be fairly quick, easy and should hopefully only take us five or six days to strip off."
Like many areas, the Spring Ridge district had been ravaged by drought in recent years, but Mr Russell said the success of his sorghum would cap off a "remarkable turnaround."
"We've been very lucky because it is not very often you can back up with a crop like this after a very solid wheat crop at a decent price," he said.
"That drought broke all the records for all of us across the state, in 2018 we didn't plant our wheat but we did put in sorghum, which we ended up having to bale.
"In 2019 we planted our wheat, baled it, but we weren't able to put in any sorghum, so we sort of got two crops out of four, which wasn't ideal but we considered ourselves lucky given how others were going.
"However, now things are tracking so much better for pretty well everyone and it is happy days."
Also running 150 Angus breeders as part of his total 1640ha operation, Mr Russell said the sorghum crops would play a vital role in his stock-feed program.
"The cattle ate the Taurus to the ground during the drought and while they did it with the 114 eventually, they weren't as keen on it," he said.
"It could of been the way the year was but it was a bit different, they were pretty picky.
"However, they will get another crack at it this time before we turn our attention to winter crops, in particular bread wheat, which we will be planting in late May.
"A few of our crops were knocked about by frost last year, so we are a little bit gun shy this year and we'll put some of our winter crops in a bit later."
Outlook Ag consultant Greg Giblett, Quirindi, said some early-sown sorghum crops in the region had yielded as much as 6.5t/ha, while others "at the southern end of the plains, could reach 7t/ha or 8t/ha".
"There is some excellent yields out there, that's for sure," Mr Giblett said.
"We've got some crops that are just flowering to some that have the headers rolling through them, so there is a nice bit of range there.
"I think that will help because the sorghum market is going along OK at the moment and hopefully it can stay that way for the later-sown crops."
Mr Gibblett said mice were "giving us an absolute caning" this summer-cropping season.
"Some people are having to bait their sorghum crops four times just to get them through," he said.
"We're generally starting just after flowering and we normally can't get more than two weeks out of a bait before the mice are back into it.
"Corn is getting hammered around here and I am hearing of cotton growers in the Central West that are getting hammered by it as well.
"We're not seeing any damage in cotton on the Liverpool Plains just yet, but we're very worried once we get some open bowls we will start to see some damage.
"All told you might have to spend $50 per hectare to get these sorghum crops through but when you think back to January last year we're very thankful everybody has managed to get some decent winter and summer crops off."
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