THIS week’s rain has filled the soil profile at the Wegener family farm in the Adelaide Hills, giving them confidence to start seeding in earnest.
They started seeding lupins at the weekend after nearly 40 millimetres on Thursday last week, which will be followed by canola after receiving a further 11mm earlier this week.
“We were prepared for a rain, but not that much,” Nathan Wegener said.
“If it was only 10mm, we would have been panicking to get the seed in before it dried out again, because we haven’t had a decent rain since February (40mm).
“We did have good moisture underneath, but this rain has topped up the profile.
“It is a very nice surprise, considering we were thinking we had to wait for a June break. We definitely consider this the break.”
Nathan and brother Brett crop 2000 hectares of wheat, peas, barley, canola, chickpeas, lupins and oaten hay, plus run 1200 Merino ewes, with parents Colin and Raelene, Nathan’s wife Jodie and Brett’s wife Melissa.
He said they won’t change much in their rotation this season, except halving their hay area.
“There is just too much hay about at the moment,” he said.
Alisha Fogden
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
Journalist at Australian Community Media newspapers since 2007.
