Josh McGregor - McGregor Gourlay, Moree

Josh McGregor

McGregor Gourlay Agricultural Sevices

Climate is a significant consideration for Josh McGregor in his role as Managing Director of McGregor Gourlay Agricultural Services. Based in Moree, Josh has been building his climate literacy so he can stay ahead of the weather, ensuring he can meet his clients cropping and livestock input needs. Interpreting complex scientific information has been a challenge Josh has been well and truly up for, following extreme drought, and more recently, flooding rains across his geographical area. Agribusinesses confront similar challenges to managing staff and inputs in the same way farmers do. Janine caught up with Josh recently to hear his climate story.

As a subscriber  – what do you feel are the key benefits of Farmer Forecast to your business?

There’s so many different models available to look at these days, and you can easily find yourself getting lost in it all and unsure what to follow. So we find the Farmer Forecast newsletter is great for dissecting the data that is relevant for our part of the world and giving us the heads up to watch developments of which we would have otherwise been unaware. Every extra day that we can have up our sleeves to prepare for a rain event is a bonus.

Where else do you like to look for your climate & weather information?

I find WillyWeather is good for current info such as wind and precipitation, and YR is usually good to get an idea of the likely spread of forecast precipitation. But Meteologix has definitely become the best source for getting a cross section of all the major short term forecast models, and it’s the one that we’ll all watch for any developing event. Any further out than that we just wait for guidance from the Farmer Forecast newsletter.  

A storm brewing over the 2020-21 cotton crop

Your region was recently affected by severe flooding from a weather event that was more extreme than forecast, do you think that the extremes of droughts & flooding rains are changing the way those in rural businesses consider climate?

The 2018/19 drought saw everyone in our region having to tighten their belts, and by Christmas 2019 mentally prepare that it was going to keep going for some time to come. But then we had to go from zero to a hundred miles an hour in a matter of weeks in early 2020, and 2021 has so far been more of the same. So in our game you can plan all you like for a set of conditions, but you have to be ready to pivot quickly and sometimes dramatically. Each season we have to assume we could be facing extremes either way, and we aim to mitigate that by leveraging relationships and information sources available as much as possible to prepare for very different outcomes. I’m not sure that even the extreme events of the last few years have greatly changed the way we all consider climate, but I do feel we are getting better as using resources available to adapt to what’s ahead.      

IF 2020 winter started with a full profile, 2021 is overflowing!

While weather and seasonal climate outlooks are a major influence in yours and your clients businesses, do the underlying climate drivers often come up in client conversation? While weather and seasonal climate outlooks are a major influence in yours and your clients businesses, do the underlying climate drivers often come up in client conversation?

It can be a little like religion sometimes, as everyone can have their own sources that they follow! The drivers do come up often in conversation, but the variety of models available overlaid with broad generalisations from the media mean that there can be broad interpretations. We’ve been aiming to gradually improve climate literacy amongst our staff and customers with the help of the AgEcon team, and 2019 certainly raised awareness of the major drivers that can have an effect on our weather as we all started to watch systems such as the SAM and IOD that previously probably weren’t quite so widely understood.

Any other comments on considering climate in rural businesses?

Climate dominates everything we do, but I’m constantly amazed at how farming in Australia keeps getting better at doing more with less. There’s plenty of doom and gloom in the media about what the future holds, but I’m optimistic that we’ll keep adapting.

Like stats? Checkout www.climateapp.net.au

Any questions, feedback for Josh or Farmer Forecast?

Email us at: farmerforecast@agecon.com.au

Agronomist Greg Rummery

Greg Rummery

Farmer & Agronomist

Walgett farmer and Agronomist with Outlook Ag (an agronomic consultancy covering NW NSW), Greg Rummery recently shared with Ag Econ’s Janine Powell, how climate is considered in his role as an agronomist.

Climate knowledge or advice hasn’t been part of the traditional role for an Agronomist - how have you seen this evolve over the years. And how might this evolve in the future?

You’re right, but the weather and in particular rainfall is always a topic of conversation and probably more so when working in lower rainfall and variable rainfall environments. So climate advice has always been an underlying theme even in the early years at Walgett and becoming more of an advice topic over the recent decade that for us at least has been played by unrelenting drought. A few agronomists have links to private forecasters and subscription type climate and rainfall advice has become more popular, some with dubious understandings of the local context. I see that becoming more common into the future. Climate forecast I see as a very different subject to that of a rainfall forecast and I generally get them from different sources.

Do you provide climate commentary, advice or point your clients to sources of climate information?

A bit of both. Relaying the message or key points from forecast like AgEcon's or the Nutrien fellow Eric Snodgrass is pretty common. Advice is generally around risk management and the interface with crop choice or in-field management strategies in a proactive context.

Walgett 2019, It was hard to believe that from this point the land could spring back to productivity

Many farmers in the Walgett region started 2020 winter with a full profile,

La nina didn’t really kick in until aFter harvest

How does they way your clients consider the climate vary?

Some try to understand the science around forecasting down to the minute detail, others simply look at climate, mother nature, rainfall etc and use the simple analogies that we often hear such as "you either get enough or not” with reference to rainfall, "mother natures been kind" and "we have seen this all before”. The latter is more observatory rather than predictive. That said, I feel most farmers and agronomists look at what seems to be a dozen or so forecast models each morning before breakfast!  

IF 2020 winter started with a full profile, 2021 is overflowing!

Did many of your clients plan for the La Nina?

We have a couple of sayings in the west that go along the lines of “work on what you have not what you think you’re going to get” with reference to soil water and, “ if you’re forced to look up then usually you’re in for a doing over”  (typically said with a bit more slang!)  

 That said we did consider the planned wetter summer with the use of residual herbicide products in fallow etc with many clients.  Given that, we were coming from drought in 2019, very little country was fallowed through winter 2020 given the timely planting opportunity that presented in April/May 2020, so our planned summer crop area was pretty small and well short of a normal season.

Looking forward, what comments would you make on the climate considerations for the end of summer and the coming winter season?

The recent rain has topped up fallow moisture well (a bit too well in places!), the forecast looks average to slightly wetter for winter rainfall from what I can see, so our plan will be to plant what we can if the timeliness of the planting windows for the different crops presents. Our biggest risk in many paddocks is continuing wet and that may result in some planting intentions being held over to a later winter crop opportunity or summer crop. If we are forced to fallow through to a summer crop then we would have a good close look at what the summer outlook for rain and temps are prior to making a decision around summer crop choice and planting time.

Like stats? Checkout www.climateapp.net.au

Any questions, feedback for Greg or Farmer Forecast?

Email us at: farmerforecast@agecon.com.au

Farmer climate focus - Hamish McLaren

Farmers purchasing holdings in different geographies is a common method of risk management and diversification. However, it is not always apparent or obvious that moving location will necessarily diversify climate drivers and reduce seasonal risk. Managing logistics, absentee ownership and timeliness of operations can be deterrents for climate diversification away from a farm base. In this example, two farms have located either side of the Great Dividing Range, only 110km apart - each with very different climate drivers and contrast among farm enterprises. Hamish shares his families story of how this approach evolved and has since withstood the test of time.

Hamish McLaren

Walcha, Northern NSW

Location snapshot

Catchment:   Upper Namoi Valley and Hastings Valley NSW

Altitude:        1000-1200 m

Enterprise:    Stud Merino Rams, Commercial Merinos (west), Beef cattle breeding and fattening enterprises (west and east)

Rainfall:       West - Wet season (Oct-Mar): 63% rainfall
Cool-season (Apr-Sep): 37% rainfall

East - Wet season (Oct-Mar): 65% rainfall
Cool-season (Apr-Sep): 35% rainfall

Location: New England Tablelands, NSW

Location Map (above). The two farms are situated either side of the Great Dividing Range, NSW.

Climate drivers are diversified among seasons and locations. The one to watch is ENSO Modoki, due to its influence at key decision times. The below chart shows rainfall reliability alters between east and west, shifting the peak production window across a number of months during the calendar year. December is the leading month for rain in the west and February in the east (bottom table).

“None significant” means it can rain well regardless of ENSO cycle or climate influence. Correlations are generally weaker in Autumn season. Driver analysis courtesy Risbey et al (2009) and Lim et al (2012)

Weather station data courtesy BOM

When did your family settle in the region?

It was 1963 when grandparents, Jack and Poppy bought Nerstane and moved up from Sydney.

What was the rationale behind purchasing another farm 110km east away from the home bock, instead of adding on the original farm at Nerstane?

In the 1970s, my grandfather Jack used to drive between the Yarras timber mill he owned, and in doing so, noticed it was always green and raining through Yarrowitch. Jack was a keen mathematician and must have worked out the two locations were inverse or had opposing climates. He thought it would be a safe bet to have a farm in the east and west, to then move stock between the two as the seasons changed. Looking back then, there was no internet or rainfall statistics available, so this was very forward-thinking at the time. He paid $90 acre back then for Forest Lodge and converted it to freehold for $10 / acre.

2017 Supreme Australian Merino ram, Dubbo. Sold to Uraguay For $40,000. Pictured with father John (centre) and brother Jock (far right).

How are the two farms complementary from a climate risk perspective?

Nerstane (west) is a slightly drier climate and is better suited to wool production than Forest lodge (east) and its far better to run the Merino stud where we live due to the higher management requirements and record keeping. Being able to value-add our poll Hereford cow/calf operation has been worthwhile. Instead of selling store CFA cows, we can ship them east into a “grass feedlot” and sell them fat. The cow/calf works well with the sheep, as they can utilise the long grass in the paddock rotation with the sheep coming in behind. The higher rainfall in the east is better suited to dry cattle that can achieve great weight gain performance.

With the highly variable climate we live in, and knowing livestock need a constant source of nutrition, has the system ever been exposed or forced you to shut down your business and wait for rain?

There have been some very testing years in the last decade, although we have never had to mothball the business. Towards the end of 2019, we were feeling the pinch, although we retained our numbers of both sheep and cattle. Overall the complimentary climate and enterprises have served the business very well. There are more families in this district diversifying their operations with eastern fall country - to hedge climate risk from western fall country. More frequent droughts have forced grazing operations to adapt and find ways to manage climate risks. Feeding stock for long periods is no fun!

Homebred milk-tooth poll hereford steer running on high performance pastures weighing 720 kg

What has been one of the key management levers of managing periods of dry weather in livestock production? (i.e. early weaning, lot feeding, selling dry stock early, new pasture varieties, sheep/cattle balance, agistment contacts to call on)

We have done all of those! The better pasture varieties have been the main winner. They allow livestock to do better and turnover quicker which speeds the system up and reduces risk. The new varieties also hold on better during dry times. All of those things are part of the solution when things turn for the worst.

Where are your go-to sources of climate/weather information?

Before the 2019 drought, the ABC news was the main go-to or any weather App. we could find! Farmer Forecast looks interesting and we have to get better educated on this topic for sure.

Do you have a climate risk-taking success or failure story? (e.g. speculative purchase of stock or grain in anticipation of drought/wet)

We fed our 450 cows through 2001-02 and said we’d never do it again, but did it again in2018 and 2019 but probably don’t regret it like last time. The market has been phenomenal since the drought broke so that’s been a climate success story! We have bought poor conditioned cows in droughts too and fattened them which has been a good earner as well.

What’s your season looking like at the moment on both places?

The season at Nerstane is the best in 40 years and Forest Lodge is well above average too.

Have a farming climate story to share? Please contact us.

Farmer climate focus - John Hamparsum

John Hamparsum

Liverpool Plains, NSW

Location snapshot

Catchment:   Upper Namoi Valley, NSW

Altitude:        300 m

Enterprise:    Winter cropping: Durum, bread-wheat and canola
Summer cropping: Cotton and sorghum

Rainfall:        Wet season (Oct-Mar): 61% rainfall
Cool-season (Apr-Sep): 39% rainfall

Seasonal rainfall climate drivers:

El Nino-Modoki (EMI) is the key climate driver, however, little connection exists post-January to May.

Some impact from the Indian Ocean Dipole and SAM during spring in this location - strongly EMI related climate influence

What are your ‘go-to’ sources of climate/weather information? Basically the internet. I’ve got pages of bookmarks of weather sources that I go to. Predominantly for the short-term, ten day kind of stuff, I use Meteorlogixs because of the ability to look at the eight or so different models in there. That gives you an idea of both temperature forecasts and rain forecasts between the models. The Bureau of Meteorology Land and Water is also another one I’ll look at. They both go through various stages of accuracy. The European model, the ECMWF, lately seems to be the most accurate and windy.com is also a very good website. Long-term, I used to read the Bureau forecasts but the last four summers they’ve got every one of them wrong so my faith in that has gone out the window. I mean, they have forecast a wet summer for the last four years and we’ve had record lows. Even this November was a record low month when they were forecasting above average rainfalls. I guess my faith in the BOM is pretty low at the moment, they are going to have to do a lot of work to get their credibility back up to an acceptable level.

How do you consider climate in your farm management? Climate is one of the main factors impacting a farming business. I mean, a farm is a factory without a roof on it. Climate has a major impact, whether it be heat waves, cold spells, dry spells, wet, windy, all of those have an impact on the productivity of your farm. Irrigation does tend to insulate you a little bit, but we, as most irrigators in the northern valleys know, in the last three years we have had no water. I am a member of the Farmers for Climate Action group and I am quite active in that because I believe that our climate is being impacted by climate change and I think that we need to be more proactive in that space, both on individual levels and as a nation and as a planet because climate is basically what will provide food and fibre for generations to come and it’s going to determine the success or failure of being able to supply that. It’s by looking at the long term climate drivers that you make decisions on how you’re going to farm, also with our crop configuration. We use it to make decisions about how much single-skip cotton we will plant versus solid plant irrigated country we will plant. So, we will make a decision asking are we going to cover ourselves by using single-skip which doesn’t use as much water and can handle water stress better and if it’s looking like we are going into a longer dry period we might increase our percentage of single-skip from 25 percent to 35 percent just to hedge our bets.

Can you share a climate success (or failure) story with us? Going back, I remember in 1992 the forecast, from talking to Roger Stone at the time, was that we were going in to a dry pattern with an el Nino and my father and I had the opportunity to put down another irrigation bore and we thought ‘let’s go ahead and do this.’ And it paid off because 1992 right through to ‘96 was incredibly dry and having that extra bore made the big difference to our yields.

How did your winter crops pan out? The sad part about it was that we had very good rain at the early part of establishment and the crop set itself up to be very large, sort of record breaking yield type structure to the plant and then it just stopped raining and we just were not prepared. Even though we had a full storage of water - well we irrigated one field and worked out how much water it was using and decided not to keep going because our confidence we were going to have a wet summer was not strong. So, we decided not to irrigate the rest of the wheat because we might need it for our summer crop and then the wheat crop hit the wall, moisture wise. We didn’t have a completely full profile coming out of the drought, even though we’d had some good rains we probably only had an 85, 90 percent profile. So, when that dry September hit it really capped out the yield in the winter crop.

How is the climate considered in your future planning? My membership to the Farmers for Climate Action group does play a major role but we are only individuals, we can’t influence how whole nations like China and Europe behave, but we can point out to our own government that we need to be taking actions against climate change. Hopefully this, not so much for me but for my children and their children, that will have a positive impact. Looking at some of the modelling I see that the extremes are going to be a lot more amplified. and for us, living on a flood plain, that could mean that the floods could be a lot worse and the dry times could be a lot worse and the strength of the storms and the voracity of them. The way I see it is, like any chemical experiment, the more heat you put in, the more wild the reaction is.

As an early subscriber, what do you value most from AgEcon’s services? I value the breadth of research that AgEcon is providing and interpreting for us. I really feel like I get a far more knowledgeable interpretation of all the models. I find it really useful and a powerful tool to be able to read those reports and listen to podcasts and make heads and tails of what’s happening rather than looking at the trees and seeing if there’s new shoots on them - which I also do.

Have a farming climate story to share? Please contact us.

Farmer climate focus - Nigel Burnett

Nigel and Beth Burnett run a mixed broadacre cropping farm near Emerald, QLD. With a mixture of both irrigated and rain grown cropping enterprises, the climate is a key management consideration. Nigel shares with us how he is preparing for an altered summer cropping program based on the favourable 2020-21 outlook.

Nigel Burnett

Emerald, Qld

Location snapshot

Catchment:   Fitzroy Catchment (Comet River sub basin and Nogoa River sub basin)

Altitude:        156m

Enterprise:    Broadacre cropping (irrigated & dryland).
Winter cereals and legumes, Summer (Cotton and sorghum)

Rainfall:        Wet season (Oct-Mar): 76% rainfall
Cool season (Apr-Sep): 24% rainfall

Seasonal rainfall climate drivers: Niño 4 ocean indicator seems to be the one to watch for Emerald

El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the key climate driver, however, ENSO impacts are very weak post-January to May.

Very little impact from the Indian Ocean dipole in this location - strongly ENSO related climate influences

What are your ‘go-to’ sources of climate/weather information?

OCF and OzForecast for weekly weather forecast. Jon Welsh’s seasonal climate analysis, WXMAPS (GFS) for a broad picture of what's going on and the BOM to round it all out.

How do you consider climate in your farm management? Consideration of climate plays a big part in our farm management strategy. It is a key driver in our decision making and is integral to our risk management strategy. We use it mainly to get a feel for where things are heading in terms of our seasonal outlook for our region and the rest of the Eastern cropping zone. The weather conditions we receive during fallow and in-crop are out of our control, but we can manipulate our production system to maximise the opportunity provided by a favourable seasonal outlook or manage our exposure to risk from a poor seasonal outlook. Some of the management decisions which we make to respond to the climate outlook are planting decision, planting timing, rotation, variety and maturity, fertiliser program and stubble management.

Can you share a climate success (or failure) story with us?

I was on the Cotton Industry Awards judging trip in April of 2016 and and was fortunate to spend some time discussing the seasonal outlook with Jon Welsh on our visit to Narrabri. Jon was very bullish on the rainfall outlook for winter for the whole eastern cropping zone and after analyzing other climate forecasts and considering other important management drivers, I came back to Emerald and planted wall to wall chickpeas including all of our irrigated fields. Luckily this turned out to be a very good decision as that winter was very favourable in terms of rain and temperature. It was easily our most profitable winter crop that I can remember growing ever. Now I am sure Welshy will be the first to advocate not to plant your whole farm to one particular crop on his advice of an improvement in the seasonal condition. But it was a very important consideration among other drivers such as soil moisture, commodity price, water availability for irrigation and cash flow.

There was early talk of a wetter winter, however you haven’t received much rain after your wetter than average Feb/Mar. How did your winter crop pan out?

Our area certainly missed the wetter winter memo and it has been a tough winter cropping season for Central Queensland. We planted 3000Ha of wheat and chickpeas on predominantly rain grown country and a small amount of semi irrigated wheat. Our team had to chase moisture deep for planting the wheat and the chickpeas using a moisture profile from the last significant rainfall from late February/ early March. The profile wasn't consistent and plant stand wasn't ideal, further contributing to the effect of the tough season on the very average yields. However, even with the benefit hind sight, I would still plant those crops for the new crop stubble benefit. 

What are you thoughts for this summer crop?

We have received 50-60mm in the last week of October across our entire area and with the improved seasonal forecast we are feeling more and more optimistic by the day. If the rain continues and we fill our soil profile during November, we will plant a significant portion of our area to irrigated and rain grown cotton. Although August has become the preferred option to plant irrigated cotton in our region, I think there is still enough time to grow a good crop of cotton in CQ that is planted in November and harvested in May.

Have a farming climate story to share? Please contact us.

Farmer climate focus - Sam Becker, Jarrah Cattle Company

Jarrah Cattle Company’s Sam Becker runs a livestock business that includes some forage cropping. The climate and managing groundcover to ensure feed budgets are met, provides the greatest challenge for management.

Sam Becker

Banana, Qld

Location snapshot

Catchment:   Lower Fitzroy Catchment

Altitude:        181 m

Enterprise:    Stud Hereford, Redford and Jarrah Red cattle and forage cropping, including sorghum and oats.

Rainfall:        Wet season (Oct-Mar): 78% rainfall
Cool season (Apr-Sep): 22% rainfall

Seasonal rainfall climate drivers: Banana, Qld

El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the key climate driver, however, ENSO impacts are very weak post-January to May.

What are your ‘go-to’ sources of climate/weather information?

BOM is a big one and we also use The Long Paddock reports supplied by DAF which allows us to see which percentiles we’re sitting in and how much groundcover we have. We also link that in with our records of past rainfall and then looking at the future rainfall as well. I also get a fair bit of information about climate change from social media to be completely honest and then when you read stuff about that and then look at your past three to five year annual rainfall, for example, we’ve been below our annual rainfall for the last five years, so, it’s looking at that to try and find trends. It’s more to find those trends to manage how heavily we stock and where we stock.

How do you consider climate in your farm management?

A big thing we do is try and link our groundcover and rainfall and look at those two things to see if we should be buying or reducing stock. That’s probably been reactive to an extent, but we have also been making decisions on the go, I guess that sort of reflects the decisions that we have made. We don’t want to start with nothing. We want to have groundcover when we go into the wet season and make sure there’s a bit of a body of feed. If there’s nothing there we would have sold. We try to de-stock before we get to that stage, or at least we keep selling off dry cattle to spread our breeders around so that we keep some level of groundcover there.

Can you share a climate success (or failure) story with us?

Probably a failure. In the last five years we were too reactive to the climate. We were selling down, but we probably weren’t doing it quick enough, so we did– particularly with one property – eat it to the ground. We sort of got trapped when the cattle became out of spec, so they became hard sell. We were definitely reactive to that. We had a set number in our heads that we knew our properties could run and we didn’t take into account the last five years with below average rainfall and then the last two which were significantly below. We still, in our minds, thought that we could run a certain amount of cattle which, in turn, lead to one property significantly suffering.  

What’s your soil moisture looking like at the moment?

We’re pretty dry, as in we have had hardly any rain to date since April. So, yes, we are very dry. Not much moisture, not much protein in the soil, we do have a good grass-cover but it’s all dry feed. Because of this we are supplementing our breeding cattle with a fair bit a custom-mix dry lick that is made with our deficiencies and our country in mind.

Do you have altered management plans for the rest of the year considering La Nina has been announced?

We are definitely considering it. It’s now when we consider these trigger points we have that prompt us, depending on how much feed we’ve got, to start selling off dry cattle. This is so we can spread our breeders around so that we keep that good body of feed and then wait until rain comes before we increase our numbers. We’ve made a big effort this year to make sure we start off with good ground cover for the wet season. We definitely aren’t going to start buying in cattle thinking we are going to get good rain, we are going to wait until we’ve had decent rain, the grass has got away and then we would look to build our numbers again.

Have a farming climate story to share? Please contact us.

The co-efficient of variation (CoV) for rainfall helps understand which months are more reliable than others. The chart shows a generally reliable monsoon rainfall, with November as the most reliable month and July as the least reliable month.

El Niño-Southern Oscillation is the major climate driver in the region. An analysis of Oct-Jan rainfall shows some broad trends towards average or better in La Niña years, low rainfall years in most El Niño years and neutral years as completely random.

Developed by the International centre for applied climate sciences https://climateapp.net.au/ has some handy tools to understand the climate for your area.

A summer-dominant rainfall at Banana, Qld. An output of https://climateapp.net.au/

Tracking close to average rainfall for 2020. An output of https://climateapp.net.au/

Farmer climate focus - Janine & Christian Powell

Ag Econ’s Janine Powell lives with her family on a farm near Burren Junction. Her husband Christian is part of a family farming operation that is focused around dryland and irrigation farming enterprises, the climate is a huge consideration in their business.

Location snapshot

Catchment:   Namoi Valley (Murray Darling Basin)

Altitude:        163 m

Enterprise:    Broad acre dryland, irrigated farming and livestock

Soils:             Cracking grey vertosols (Plant Available Water 200mm)

Rainfall:        Wet season (Oct-Mar): 63% rainfall
Cool season (Apr-Sep): 37% rainfall

Seasonal rainfall climate drivers: Burren Junction, NSW

Janine & Christian Powell

Burren Junction, NSW

“As broadacre farmers we feel beholden to the weather. Recently it has been too dry, sometimes too wet… rarely do we get the Goldilocks experience of the weather being ‘just right’” Janine explains.

On farm the Powells take into consideration long-term forecasts for planning crop rotations and plantings. While these forecasts can give a good indication of potential climatic patterns, they are well aware that it is not a guarantee of getting (or not getting) rain.

The Powells have a winter cropping program which includes cereals and pulses. “With the wetter 2020 Winter Spring seasonal model forecast in mind, this year we capitalised on the rain that fell in Feb-April by planting all our dryland area to a mix of winter crops”. Like many other farms in the region, it is the first time in 4 years since the full area has been planted.

“Some of our country is slightly undulating with poor drainage, so we hope it’s not a wet at harvest… at this point it’s looking that way.”

“It’s important to understand which factors drive the climate in our region to better manage risk – particularly during our winter cropping growing season”.

Climate literacy allows farmers like the Powells to consider potential climate risks and how they can be mitigated. “With the wetter outlook, we did contemplate leaving out some of our lower laying paddocks fallow but decided the opportunity cost was too high. Instead we planted those areas to lower cost cereals – if they get waterlogged or even flooded prior to harvest – we won’t have lost too much money.”

The Powells utilise silo bags for temporary on farm storage. “In the past we’ve ensured they were on raised pads and in accessible positions for trucks. This year we are looking at increasing the size of the areas allocated for the bags and potentially improving the road accessibility to some of them.”

When asked which rainfall models they look to for shorter forecasts they both use Meteologix. “It’s a great overview of what many of the international models are predicting, I like to take a rough average of the models as an indication, but the high and low also give a potential range of what you might expect.”

This year to date the Powells have had 392 mm of rain. May and June turned out dryer than expected with a total of just 25 mm. Rainfall for July and August totalled 74 mm and they have their hopes on high September rainfall to finish the winter crop.

“During rainfall events we are glued to the BOM radar and then afterwards we are on OzForecast seeing where the rain fell locally.” Janine likes looking at the broader BOM image of the state or Australia image to see the overall movement of the system, whereas Christian likes to be zoomed in to see where (and on who’s farm) the rain is falling. The Powells recently installed a Davis weather station that is linked to the OzForecast network to see real and accurate on farm weather data. “The purchase may have also been prompted by one too many disappointing instances of the gauge over reading due to an ill placed sprinkler!”

“Certainly, for the bigger picture it’s important to have an understanding of the cyclical nature of Indian ocean Dipole and El Niño-Southern Oscillation phases. Access to good quality climate information can help our farming business make better decisions, more often”.

Across Australia the 2020 Winter crop is forecast at 47.9 million tonnes 64% higher than last year and 20% higher than the 10-year average (ABARES September Crop Report). Janine is encouraged by this outlook, “A decent winter crop will be a real help to Australian farmers, the Ag sector and the broader Australian economy – it’s what we all need”.

Have a farming climate story to share? Please contact us.

January 1st 2020, Dry rivers and wondering if it will be another cropless year

Planting in APRIL on the back of good rain Feb-Apr

September crop inspection - Faba beans

September - the faba beans are filling the pods.