Farmers throughout Victoria are cautiously optimistic about the growing season after having received above average rainfall totals in April.
Bureau of Meteorology’s data shows most regions recorded monthly falls of 50 to 200 millimetres of rain last month.
While much of the Mallee received 25-55mm, that was still above historic averages for the month. Many areas of the south west, central and north east of the state recorded rainfall totals in the 100-200mm range.
Mark Jacob cannot recall a better April at Dreeite South, north-east of Colac. He runs Angus cattle there with wife Leah and in the past six months, their son James has come back to help them four days a week.
“I don’t recall an April being as good and I’m in my 65th year of farming,” Mr Jacob said.
He said they received 207mm of rain last week.
“It’s just fantastic, here we more often don’t get much rain in April, maybe some showers but certainly not soaking rains.
“You can see the grass growing,” he said of their native pastures.
Julie Wyatt who runs Angus cattle with husband Kevin at Wright Swamp, Mount Richmond, in far south-west Victoria, said they had also received “a lot” of rain. The weather station at Portland recorded 103.6mm of rain in April compared to its historic average of 58.2mm for the month.
“It’s as green as, it’s beautiful,” Mrs Wyatt said.
She said it was getting slippery in parts of their paddocks.
The rainfall has been widespread. In the state’s north-east Ian Ralston has received more than 100mm at Riggs Creek in the past three weeks.
“We had 71mm last week and 34mm in the week before,” Mr Ralston said.
“It’s a bit on the wet side at the moment, and some of the low spots are waterlogged.”
Most of Mr Ralston’s 120 Hereford and Hereford-cross cows have calved down, so he plans to start rotating paddocks to get more growth while there’s still warmth in the ground. He does a little bit of cropping each year for pasture renovation, and said he plans to burn the stubbles and spray it out, before he works it over and sows it, after having made some marks in the paddock from making hay last season.
Broadacre farmer Steve Ludeman, who farms with brother Tony and Chris at Dookie, said they’d got 60mm last week, which topped up falls earlier in April.
“It’s been good and it’s quite wet now; we’re only just back on our paddocks now [to continue sowing],” Mr Ludeman said.
“It’s a perfect autumn break and we don’t need much more [rain] here for the next two or three weeks.”
He said they had a reasonable soil moisture profile carried over from last year and summer’s falls.
“The moisture was down 30 or 40 centimetres, so it didn’t take much for it to meet up.”
Today, they are sowing their last paddock of canola, before sowing faba beans tomorrow, with wheat and some chickpeas to follow. Mr Ludeman said some paddocks of canola had come up in five or six days.
He said having more than a week between major rainfall events meant the weeds had germinated and they brothers had been able to get a good knock down done before sowing.
