There is no doubt that in the north west anyway, this has been the best summer in decades. There has been months of dry weather and sunshine with just enough of rain to keep things growing, on the heavier farms at least.

People farming lighter sandier, more free draining soils may disagree, but the rain has arrived now so hopefully the pressure has eased off these farmers also.

People were starting to adopt the Australian frame of mind “no worries mate”, no panic on, if we don’t get it done today, we’ll get it done tomorrow!

Growth figures

Last week’s grass growth figure on my farm was 79kgs Dm/Ha. My grazing area is still stocked at 4.7 LU/Ha, in a normal year I would usually have to bring some of the area that was closed for first cut silage back into the grazing rotation after it was harvested, in order to compensate for a drop in grass growth heading in to July.

Silver linings for some

This year however due to the excellent growth rates, good ground conditions and good utilisation, I so far have managed to close and keep closed the same area for second cut as was harvested for first. I was also able to mow and bale a small bit of extra grass from my paddocks, so hopefully I should have a good supply of fodder for the winter, unless things change drastically and we end up with a back end like last year.

For as long as I can remember we’ve all been hoping for a good summer, April and May were always my favourite months. Reason being the anticipation of the summer coming was always better that the summer that actually arrived. Now that we have got what we wished for it is not without its problems.

Although on my heavy farm it’s probably the best year I have ever experienced farm wise, unfortunately for the farmers in the south of the country, the scenario is very different.

Grass fields have been burnt brown, farmers were forced to graze their second cut silage and are now feeding their first cut! Farmers are using high levels of concentrate just to keep their animals fed, this has left the situation where some materials such as barley, soya hulls, beet pulp and corn gluten are in very short supply on the nearby and some importers are not even quoting forward prices for the winter. They have forward sold all material available to them and can’t quote a price until they secure a new cargo, which is proving somewhat difficult!

Expensive winter ahead

All these factors combined are pointing to a hard and expensive winter ahead. Some areas have now received rain but one farmer told me that a lot of the grass is completely dead and all that’s growing after the rain is weeds. Spring crops are a big casualty of the drought. Some didn’t grow at all and what did grow will have a much lower yield of both grain and straw. This in turn has naturally increased the price of both. Straw has over doubled in price and will need to be used sparingly. It is way too expensive to feed to dry cows but anyone lambing ewes or calving cows will know, there really is no substitute for a good deep clean bed of straw!