Drove through the Downs on the way through to Toowoomba the other day and I must agree the crops down there on the Downs are enough to make any grain grower druel. Unfortunatley the further west and north you go the worse it gets. Once again East of Roma is all set up with some fantastic incrop rain but to the W and South west isn't anywhere near as good. We have only plant 2_3 of the area we wanted to plant. Much of that moister seeking on wide rows. Many have planted on very limited moister on a wish and a prayer and the patchy establishment is testiment to that. I think it's going to be a bugger of a harvest this year because of it. There are almost two seperate crops in the one paddock thanks to the recent rain, the first with the secondaries down and powering away, the second is only just coming out of the ground. Crop planting timing on the one place can range from the start of May through to mid to late June. So if your looking for harvesting up in this area, brace yourself for some very frustrating waiting around for the crops to mature and ripen.All that said, those that have planted early and had good moisture on them should have cracker crops, the only risk with them being a late frost, particularlly with the rate they are powing away in the warmer, moist conditions we've had over the last 3 or 4 days. Some very handy early planted chickpea crops about as well, but once again that frost factor is still a worry. As I said there has been a bit of rain about over the last week or so, for the week, we've up around 40mm or rain, the question is do we plant more now or hang out for any early summer crop. After the disasterious crops we had back in 2001 after a late July plant people are a little coy about that now, the only thing that really shone out then was Duram wheat.Ahh the joys of farming.... wouldn't change it for quids!!
