This season’s been anything but typical! Here’s the expert take on what’s been and what’s ahead.
South Australian farmers have had a tough start to the season with barely any rain — crop yields have dropped, and livestock feed is running low. Matt Howell, Senior Agronomist at Platinum Ag Services, teams up with farmers to boost their cropping and pasture programs. We chatted with Matt about how local farmers have been impacted this season, and how to stay resilient and profitable, even when times get tough.
What’s made this season so unusual?
This season’s been different because it was such a late start
— we didn’t get our break until the third week of June. Before that, we’d had almost no rainfall from January to June, with only about 10 millimetres in total. It’s the longest, driest start to the year we’ve seen in a long time. Right now, our seasonal rainfall is way down, with about 170 millimetres total for the year in a 450-millimetre annual rainfall zone. Our growing season rainfall is only 110 millimetres here so far. One local farmer, who’s kept rainfall records for 140 years on his family farm, says this is the driest start to a year they’ve ever seen, so it’s been a real challenge.
What other challenges have your clients faced?
Due to the dry start, managing water-repellent or non-treated soils has been a challenge, and because it’s been so dry for so long, the impact of water- repellent soils has worsened, and this has led to the patchiest start to crop growth we’ve ever seen. It’s made it really hard to get a crop going when the soil just won’t get wet.
How is this year’s harvest looking?
I work in Meningie, in the Upper South East of South Australia, covering the area from Murray Bridge to Tintinara and over to the coast. Harvest will start in October or November, just like usual, beginning with barley and then moving to canola. What will be different is the amount of straw and crop we need to process. Due to the lack of early rainfall, we’re expecting lower biomass crops, so we won’t be processing tons and tons of straw through headers. It should be a reasonably civilised process. Hopefully there’s plenty of grain, but we won’t be dealing with massive canopies.
How will this impact the season’s yield?
The late start has led to slow- growing crops, with pests and diseases hitting earlier than usual. On the livestock side, there’s been very little feed available. They’re dealing with tough conditions
and trying to manage lambing with almost no feed. It’s been a very tough start to the year.
What have we learnt from the season so far?
There’s no right and wrong answer in a year like this — it’s a one in 100-year event. We won’t know what worked best until the end of the season. However, we’ve already seen that managing summer weeds has been really helpful, and crops have grown more evenly in fields that were religiously kept fallow. On the other hand, crops in fields that were neglected or used for sheep feed have suffered more. They faced moisture stress earlier and have far more nutrient issues than anywhere else.
We’ve also learned which soils are better for dry sowing and which aren’t. It’s not always easy with large-scale farming, but there were some fields where we should have waited. Waiting to sow on our water-repellent soils would have mixed in moisture as we sowed, leading to more consistent germination in these challenging soil types. We should have waited for paddocks with heavy weed burdens, as that knockdown would have allowed for cleaner crops and more water available to the crop, especially in areas with herbicide-resistant weeds. Additionally, we should have dry sown more cereal for stock feed, as it has produced far more fodder on the minimal rainfall than our traditional perennial Lucerne pastures alone. Early nitrogen applications have also helped crops grow better and made them more robust coming into winter.
What role has soil amelioration played?
Given this season’s conditions, any improvements we made in the past four to five years are really paying off. This year isn’t great, but those past efforts are helping our plants keep their leaves and colour a lot better. They’re drawing moisture from deeper in the profile, so we’re accessing that deeper bucket. Amelioration is probably going to be our best return on investment this season, with the water limitations on yield.
But this year’s Bednaring is a bit of a mix. We deep ripped in March and April, and then didn’t get a break until June. It’s been a tough year, and we haven’t had the best seed placement or emergence. So, this year’s Bednaring is only just starting to show benefits, but we’re seeing a positive response now. The crop was slower early on, but the crops on previously ameliorated land or better soil are maturing faster.
What does this mean going forward?
For us, amelioration is key to building resilience in our business, and this year proves what we’re doing is right. We’re seeing a great response to any amelioration strategy, whether it’s Bednar, deep ripping, plozza plowing, or spading. We’re accessing more moisture at depth, giving our crops a longer season than they would normally have with the rainfall we’ve had. We’ve only had 110mm of growing season rainfall so far, but crops on ameliorated country are going to yield. While they won’t be average, they’ll be significantly better than any other crops in the district on unameliorated soils. So, this year is the true test of our amelioration program, and we’ll actually see it shine in this tough season. It will make the difference between profitable and unprofitable crops this year.
Do you have any tips for handling these issues in the future?
At the end of the day, we’re at the mercy of rain. But being smart and proactive is crucial, whether it’s for summer spraying, planning rotations, or keeping records. For example, if a paddock isn’t yielding as expected, record the amount of produce and check the yield per hectare. If it’s off, investigate why — maybe the soil is acidic, compacted, or not absorbing water well, or the fertility might be off. There are many things to check throughout the season, and it’s important to keep reviewing your situation. To get advice, your best bet is to contact your agronomist, as most farmers have one. We follow the same routine every year: planning, implementing, and reviewing our work to see what we did well and what we can improve.
How far ahead should farmers plan?
It varies from farm to farm. Many farmers now plan a few years ahead because bigger programs take time to implement. For instance, liming takes three to five years to see full profitability. Soil improvements, like using Bednar or other methods, might pay off in one year, but you need to plan rotations three years ahead to reduce erosion risk. There are many factors to consider for long-term profitability. We need to plan carefully to make sure what we do this summer will support next year’s crop and be ready for the crop two years from now.
In the last five years, my role has shifted to focusing more on the bigger picture — improving soil, choosing the right crops, and planning rotations to boost overall profitability. While an agronomist can help increase yield by 5 to 7% with in-season adjustments, the real profits come from long-term strategies. Knowing which soils to improve, how to do it, and how to plan crop rotations for maximum profitability can significantly impact a farm’s financial success. It’s about having the big picture as well as just the in-season stuff.
