In the first of our new Weather Patterns series talking to producers around the state about the weather, central Queensland journalist Judith Maizey spoke with Brad Jonsson, Jonsson Farms, Ravenshoe, and Wendy Sheehan, Trinidad Station, Quilpie.
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00:00In the first of our weather patterns catch-ups,
00:03I'm talking to Wendy Sheehan at Trinidad Station
00:06between Yarraka and Quilby.
00:08Wendy has a sheep and cattle property.
00:10And I'm also talking to Brad Johnson,
00:12who's based in North Queensland at Ravenshoe.
00:16Brad does a bit of everything, really.
00:18Grows cotton, corn, peanuts, soya beans,
00:21has a feedlot, grows avocados.
00:23Brad, if we start you off,
00:25what were you expecting weather-wise
00:27and how did that pan out?
00:30And how did it actually sort of affect
00:32your management on-farm?
00:34To the start of the year, it's been a dry January,
00:37so we planted all our crops before,
00:40well, yeah, sort of basically before New Year's Eve.
00:44So we planned right up to New Year's Eve
00:45and tried to get all the crops in, which we did.
00:48But it's been a really dry January,
00:50which is, yeah, a bit out of season, I suppose.
00:54Last January, I think we had probably about 270 mil,
00:59I think it was, and this January, 30 mil, 40 mil.
01:03Which crops did you plant and how are they going,
01:06considering you haven't had the rain you expected?
01:08Definitely looking for a drink.
01:10We've been scarifying the corn,
01:12putting urea out as a side dressing,
01:15started spreading fertiliser
01:16and put out 50 tonne yesterday and today.
01:19What crops did you actually plant again?
01:21Yeah, so we just got corn in at the moment,
01:23so we haven't planted any other crops
01:25because of the season we had last year.
01:27The soya beans, it was just too wet to harvest them
01:30and the moisture, we couldn't get the moisture down enough
01:32to harvest them.
01:33Yeah.
01:34So you also have planted a whole lot of avocado trees,
01:39how are they going?
01:40Crops looking average.
01:43Wouldn't say it's anything special,
01:45it's a pretty average crop.
01:46Yeah, we had a frost at the start of the year
01:48and then it got real hot and then we had hail.
01:52Some paddocks are good, some paddocks are real average.
01:54Bulk rain last year and then it's just been
01:58definitely one of the most challenging 12 months
02:00I've had in farming, definitely without a doubt, yeah.
02:03Down in Western Queensland, Southwestern Queensland,
02:06how have you been going?
02:07What was your expectations for the weather
02:10and how's it turned out?
02:13Has it lived up to your expectations
02:15and how's it affected your farm on farm planning and doing?
02:20Our expectation probably was for there to be
02:23a bit more rain around through November and December.
02:26There was some good changes came through,
02:28patchy storm rain of course.
02:30Places that had more than one fall
02:32are still looking pretty good,
02:33but the places that only had one lot of storms come across,
02:35of course that's all burned off again now.
02:37Certainly looking drier than we would normally expect.
02:41A couple of the shallower dams have gone dry,
02:45so we were able to clean out one of those so far.
02:48Had to shift a few cattle out of that paddock.
02:50I booked in to do our cattle work in April.
02:54We'll see what the season looks like by then
02:56and it will make big difference as to what we decide to sell
03:01or wean or keep.
03:04With your livestock, how are they going?
03:07What condition are they in?
03:09They're actually in really good condition
03:10still at the moment.
03:12We're feeding probably between two and three tonne
03:14of lick out to the cattle a week.
03:16There's a lot of leaf.
03:18The mulga looks really good.
03:19There's a lot of leaf on the mulga.
03:20There's still dry grass on the ground.
03:22There's just enough showers through the winter
03:24and into the start of summer last year
03:27to really wreck the nutritional value in a lot of the grass
03:31or in all of the grass now.
03:33A lot of it's gone black.
03:34The mulga leaves are good
03:36and they're nowhere near the stage of falling off
03:39or anything like that.
03:41So the trees are pretty happy.
03:42Our female in the cattle are just starting to carve
03:47in the last month.
03:49So hopefully it comes through and rains
03:51before they start to feel the pressure too much.
03:53Hopefully when I talk to you in a month's time,
03:55you're all smiles.