GIWA Crop Report: WA’s grain growing season ‘transformed’ and ‘turned around dramatically’ by rainfall

Grain crops showing moisture stress just weeks ago have been ‘transformed’ by recent rainfall across Western Australia, boosting the State’s grain production potential to average to above-average.

Falls of up to 100mm this month have given farmers the seasonal break they were hoping for after almost no rainfall since the start of the year caused them to seed crops dry.

The Grain Industry Association of WA this month released its crop report for June, revealing that the State’s crop potential had “turned around dramatically” in a period of about four days.

Crop reporter Michael Lamond, an agronomist at York, said farmers in the northern third of the grain growing regions had been “looking down the barrel” of a very poor year until earlier this month.

“Emerged crops were showing signs of moisture stress and much of the northern and southern grain belt were dusty and brown,” he said.

“This has since changed, with several good falls… in some cases exceeding the average rainfall for the whole of June.”

The year to date rainfall for the whole State – excluding some eastern edges of the grain belt – are now at levels where reasonable tonnages of production were possible.

WA grain farmers have planted 8.53 million hectares of crop this year, with the Kwinana Zone (which includes two areas, north and south) leading the way with 4.25 million hectares.

Comparatively, farmers in the Albany Port Zone have planted 1.70Mt, those in the Geraldton Port Zone 1.36Mt and the Esperance Port Zone 1.21Mt.

Wheat is still the biggest crop in WA, with 4.63 million hectares going into the ground across the grain growing regions, followed by canola at 1.8 million hectares, barley at 1.54 million hectares, lupins at 260,000 hectares, oats at 215,000ha and pules at 40,000ha.

While rain early in June has been significant, climate models continue to agree that below-normal rain is more likely between July and September for most of Australia – with the likelihood of an El Nino event developing in the Pacific Ocean increasing.

Kwinana Zones

Mr Lamond said the entire Kwinana South Zone and the southern portion of the Kwinana North East zone were now in nearly as good a shape as this time last year, with the latter in a race for average grain potential.

Those in the Kwinana North area have experienced a turnaround after doubling their year to date rainfall in the space of a week, with some late paddocks now expected to be planted.

“Patchy, early-sown canola crops are expected to recover while pasture paddocks now have a tinge of green,” Mr Lamond said.

“A lot of farmers with livestock were sweating on the rain and were relieved their extra sheep would have paddock feed.”

The entire Kwinana South zone has been “looking brilliant”, with emerged crops “freshened”.

“The country looks brilliant east to west, and is unusually consistent from Meckering through to Merredin,” Mr Lamond said.

“There is still a bit of patchwork of paddocks across the zone… but the rain was still early enough to give the un-emerged crops a chance of good grain yield potential.”

Farmers were now facing an “conundrum” of how to tackle weed control, with a flush expected.

Albany Port Zone

Crops in the southern part of the region are looking good after the rain, with those given nitrogen top-ups really “taking off”, Mr Lamond said.

Patchy canola crops are expected to improve and pastures will now be able to support extra sheep on-farm, but feed will still be tight until August.

About 30 per cent of the southern part of the Zone is still to be sown.

Farmers in the western parts of the Albany Port Zone are finding their crops have “gone from a feather duster to a rooster” in four days, Mr Lamond said.

“Most of the region has had between 80 to 110mm of rain in the last week, completely transforming the outlook for the region,” he said.

“Crops have come to life and the non-existent pastures have greened up within days of the rain.”

It’s a different story in the west and southern portion of the Albany Port Zone, where crops are falling behind in growth stages compared to this time last year - with less subsoil moisture reserves.

The Lakes district is well behind where it was last year, with the most crops emerging on the recent rains.

“It is not too for average grain yield potential to be achieved,” Mr Lamond said.

“But frost will have a greater impact over a wider area.”

Esperance Port Zone

Farmers near Esperance were in “desperate need of the recent rains”, with crops looking patchy and some drier areas unfortunately missing out once again – including Cascade and Salmon Gums.

The subsoil moisture reserves from rain around harvest are still there, and the later sown and emerged crops will now be able to get their roots down into it. The coastal areas are very good and not too wet as yet.

Large areas of country were sown on the angle to get crops up in the drying profile, with more farmers planting seed deeper than ever before.

Weed control in the canola paddocks has been challenging as the crops have a large range of growth stages due to the staggered emergence following planting.

A lot of nitrogen went out ahead of the rains, and growers will now be concentrating on getting rid of the flush of weeds that are expected to germinate now the country is wet.

Some country has needed double baiting for mice, although this has mainly been in barley stubbles or where there was delayed harvest from moisture or hail damage.

Geraldton Port Zone

Farmers in the Geraldton Port Zone are also in the running for average grain yield potential, Mr Lamond said, but they would need plentiful winter rain for this to occur.

Some crops have failed to emerge, while other parts needed re-seeding after a lack of rain.

The north-eastern and eastern fringe missed out on the good falls of rain, and some of the light country in the northern areas was starting to blow with little coverage.

Very few lupins have been planted in the region this year, and canola plantings have been significantly down over recent years, with cereals dominating most programs.

Many growers chased deep moisture, which has paid off as these crops have emerged with enough plants to give good yield potential.

The extra few weeks of growing season this has delivered is critical in the warmer northern portions of the grain belt.

This practice change of chasing deep moisture occurred over a large area of the state this year and while sowing deep is not without its own risks, this year it has paid off.

There is a big contrast in yield potential between those that did chase moisture and those that did not, and this could end up adding significant tonnes of grain to the 2023 WA total.