Combines hey down under

G'day tbran. How yer goin' Bloody dry and very hot [ 35c to 40 c most days ] so far right through out the cropping areas in the south east of Oz. This includes the cropping areas of South Australia, western Victoria and southern parts of New South Wales. Parts of the Queensland cropping areas have had very good summer rains and have had a huge sorghum crop which will be mostly used for stock feed within Australia as almost all grain reserves are gone due to two years drought over large parts of the Australian grain belt. In the south east , we are totally dependent on the main winter rainfall which only really gets going about early April so our sowing period down here in the SE generally starts around mid April on. From the sea temperatures set up in the Indian Ocean and the la Nina which has brought extraordinarily heavy rains right down our east coast but not inland so far, there is hope that we may finally be looking at a reasonable winter rainfall this year after 11 years of well below average rainfall or just plain drought right throughout SE Australia. If we get good opening winter rains then it will be wall to wall crops and probably a bigger acreage of wheat than normal. However with the price of barley, canola, lentils, chickpeas and everything else well on the way up, who knows what the mix may be. Western Australia has had a much better run than the eastern states over the last decade although it also has had some very dry years but could be looking at a pretty good season again this year. Just for info for Americans; Australia's total area is just a few square kilometres smaller than the 48 continental and contigious states of the USA. The area of the state of Western Australia if it was a nation, would come in as the 10th largest nation on earth, ahead of Sudan, the largest country in Africa. We are also the dryest continent on earth and farming here is a pretty tough business.

G'day there, South east NSW has had its coolest summer since 1952 and rain has been a bit above average, which has meant that stock has not needed to be fed by hand. However, March is proving to be very hot so far with no rain since the middle of February as ROM has mentioned. Cropping in this area is going to be interesting. Some farmers are "going for it", believing the price of wheat will stay at historically high levels and that a good season is upon us. They are trying to crop as much of their farms as possible. However, the chemical and fertilizer companies have increased their prices 3 times the price of 2 years ago and this means the risks involved with cropping have increased substantially. I have cancelled my cropping this year and 2 friends have reduced their cropping areas by 50%.

Would you like Al Gores phone n, he has a home here in Tn you know. He and Roger Moore could find the culprit of your woes I would bet

Thanks tbran but no thanks. He would only make a low budget shocker to put on YouTube about how he personally solved all of Australia's drought problems and then go on to send a bill for a $100 million bucks to us! When you guys elect [ can't use the right adjective here as I would insult half of America. The other half would probably cheer!! ] like Gore to run the richest and most powerful nation on earth, how in the h**l did you guys ever defeat the Indians let alone the BritishIJ! You should have stuck to doing deals with the french and bought Quebec as well as louisiana.

tbran I think you meant to say Michael Moore. Roger would be too busy shagging sheilas to do any investigating!

Major fertilizer company is quoting no definite price but put your order in . Today they tell me $1400.00_metric ton . ( place swear word here _ _ _ _ ! ) but could be a lot more when it arrives.First ordered in first served . I thought $700.00 a ton last year was bad. Hope the end product price stays up and that it rains Do i have to mention roundup and fuel. they're also talking tight supplies of selective in crop chemicals. More sheep IJ pengs5

what are the fuel prices - ours is about 3$_gal farm w_o all the road tax - road fuel approx 3.40$_gal

Rev warIJ the same way the VC beat us in VietNam. It was not with the Govt army, they won very few battles - but with the wearing down of the will through gorrila action, then the real Army wrapped it up, the French waited to see if the colonist actually had a chance before weighing in. IndiansIJ that was a very dark chapter in our history. Mostly they were wiped out by white mans disesase due to no resisitance. The swell of Europeans populating N. America was beyond control. Today the swell of population is coming from Central America. As to Quebec, we could not have done a better job of screwing that up , even if we had bought it As to lA. The US Govt, and others, has spent enough on the Katrina hurricane aftermath to give every person touched by the storm nearly a million bucks each. Still hasn't been cleaned up and restored in many areas. I used to live and work in south louisiana, it is a sink hole for cash , I will not go further and comment on the state, local govt there.

correct just call me agent 0013

G'day, Yep, more grazing is the answer. I didn't mention it in my previous post, but that is what myself and those two friends are doing. I notice too, that the share price for Incitec Pivot has dropped dramatically in the last 24 hours. Maybe no one is actually ordering the stuff. We can only hope, because I understand all the necessary stocks are in Australia.