Anzac Day has come and gone and with it the traditional deadline for the autumn break. So who got the rain and who missed out?
The autumn break is the first good rain of the winter season, needed to kick off germination.
Exactly what you need depends on where you are and what you are trying to do, but generally we are talking around an inch of rain over a couple of days.
This season it is a real mixed bag, with some dealing with too much rain and others cursing the dry.
We have checked in with farmers across the country to see how they are sitting heading into winter.
Wet and wetter in New South Wales
You would have to have been living under a very large umbrella-shaped rock to not realise New South Wales has been incredibly wet over the last few months.
There has been no exception on Kim Story’s small farm in Eugowra, NSW, where she produces fodder, lupin, and lambs.
She reckons she is getting close to 100 millimetres since the start of April, a fantastic break.
“I think everyone’s busily putting crops in,” she said.
“The early oats that I had in have really jumped away since it’s rained. So plenty of feed, which is really good to see.”
The last couple of years have been a real turn around for much of NSW.
“We came out of drought into a very, very wet couple of years. This seems to be going the same way. So we’ll see what happens,” Ms Story said.
Some in NSW are dealing with waterlogging, but so far Kim is still on the nice side of too wet.
“A lot of rain at the wrong time can affect things like growth rates in your lambs and at harvest it affects the quality of the crops,” she said.
Desert gone green
Baby Winston, born in January, is getting a unusually green first impression of his home at Wilpoorina Station near Marree, South Australia.
“Yes he has been very lucky. He thinks desert means green grass and flowing creeks, but yes he is loving it,” according to mum Ellen Litchfield, vet and third generation pastoralist.
After heavy rain earlier this week the outback property is now looking at around 140mm for the year so far, close to their yearly average by May.
“This has been lovely. If it keeps on raining like this for the rest of the year we won’t know ourselves.”
It is a chance for the trees to recover and the grass to grow.
Dr Litchfield said they would look at restocking if they can get a good deal.
“It will just be really good to help the country recover from the drought,” she said.
Southern SA still waiting
Down in the traditionally wetter parts of South Australia many are still waiting on a break.
Joylene Button grows wheat, barley, lentils, and runs sheep at Urania on central Yorke Peninsula.
Autumn rain so far has been poor, but they are at least sitting on a bit of soil moisture after rain in January.
They are coming off a good year where “all the stars aligned for a change”, according to Ms Button.
But she is uncertain about this year.
“Obviously, the Ukraine war makes prices a bit up and down at the moment. Not sure how that will pan out,” she said.
“We’re finding getting parts and machinery is really hard.”
But right now she is just hoping for as much rain as she can get.
“Not like the other parts of Australia of course,” she said.
“But anytime to open up now. We’re hoping to start seeding on May 1 regardless of whether it rains or not.
In Victoria, those in the east are in the wet boat with New South Wales, but those in the south-west are still hanging out for rain.
Dry start for Tassie
“It’s been absolutely shocking,” said Fiona Hume, a sheep farmer on the Macquarie Plains in the Derwent Valley, Tasmania.
“I’ve just been out in a paddock with a friend. I haven’t actually had the courage to look at some of our paddocks, which were sown a month ago, because they kind of broke my heart.”
Initially it was looking good with 7mm hitting the paddock, but since then things have dried up.
Ms Hume is hoping that some of the seed is sitting dormant and will recover following some rain they had this week.
“Things might pick up, but it actually looks really crook,” she said.
She needs the rain to grow adequate feed to provide nutrition to her ewes during lambing in June, July, and August.
It looks like Ms Hume’s run of good years could be stalling.
“It’s a bit of a gamble, farming. If you’re not irrigating, if you dry farm — which is basically what we are — it’s just in the hands of the gods,” she said.
“We’ve had some very good years and we’ve always been expecting to have a bad year. Looks like it’s here.”
Patchy in the west
Over in the west, Caroline Telfer and her family are riding high after their best ever season last year.
But so far this season the rain has not been cooperating.
They have had showers but are still waiting on a good soaking rain on their sheep and cropping operation south-west of Darkan, in the southern Wheatbelt.
“Someone I know got 51mm in 20 minutes where she was,” Ms Telfer lamented.
“I was away earlier this week and I looked at the radar and was thinking ‘ah gee, that’s going to be good. We’ll get some lovely rain’.
“In the morning my husband rang up said we had 4.5mm.”
But they have begun sowing regardless.
The plan this season is to grow a load of canola and make the most of the price.
“What do they say? Hope for the best and plan for the worst,” she said.
A negative Indian Ocean Dipole could encourage wetter than average conditions from the north-west across to the south-east this winter.
It is potentially good news for those waiting in the south-east, but not so much for south-west Western Australia.
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