HAVING rainfall tallies from the past 80 years gives an insight into how a season may pan out or help with on-farm decision-making.
But it also means you don’t have to have such a good memory, jokes Vic Mallee farmer Geoff Anderson, whose family has been the official rainfall tally keeper for the Bureau of Meteorology since the early 1950s.
Geoff’s mother Iris was the first in the family to take on the role, adding to the tallies collected since 1938.
“Back then it was her job because we also had the telephone office for the region at the time,” he said.
Iris would write down rain events and then post the figures to the bureau every month. When Geoff took on the role in the 1970s, he decided to note more than just the rain.
“I would make notes on any seasonal conditions that affected yields – frosts, wind storms and so on,” he said.
“The tallies really help to refresh your memory. It gives you a better idea of why a crop yielded well or poorly.
The tallies really helped to refresh your memory.
- GEOFF ANDERSON
“We would use that information in decision-making for the following season – a reference to complement your instincts and other data collected on-farm.”
Geoff said an interesting time was a 20-year period from the 1990s to 2010, when it didn’t rain in the autumn.
“That put us on the wrong foot every year,” he said.
“We certainly didn’t have any household surpluses in those years and only spent money on actions that got a return.
“I think there was only two or three years of above-average rain in that period.”
The early 1980s was also noteworthy in that they went from the worst year in 1982 with only 101 millimetres for the year and 69mm growing season rainfall, to the one of the best years in 1983, receiving 387mm for the year with 206mm GSR.
“In 1982, I think we only got about 0.45 tonnes a hectare in our wheat,” Geoff said.
”In 1983, we were reaping up to 2.5t/ha in our cereals – it was the best crop we had ever grown, despite severe rust issues.”
Geoff said they contemplated getting out of farming after that year, but found nothing more appealing.
Today, rainfall tallies are input manually and digitally, meaning the figures go online in real time.
It is not a time consuming process but a responsibility Geoff says he will pass on soon, whether it’ll be to his son, or someone else in the district.
“After nearly 50 years, it’s time for someone else to take on the mantle,” he said.
Harvest outcomes defy ‘shocking’ cropping season
THE Anderson family have farmed in the North West Vic region since 1912, when a 16-year-old James Russell Anderson made the trek from Melbourne to try his hand at agriculture.
After work experience in the Quambatook, Vic, district, he bought the original 260-hectare property at Bronzewing, Vic, at age 24.
“Back then, a one tonne a hectare crop was a good season,” grandson Geoff Anderson said.
Third generation brothers Geoff and Rodger returned to Bronzewing in 1965, to farm with father Douglas.
The property has since expanded to 5400ha, today run by Geoff and his wife Sandra and Geoff’s son Scott and his wife Vanessa.
They no-till crop mainly wheat and barley, with lupins, peas, vetch, oats and rye, and run some sheep.
Harvest is finished on the main, after a “shocking season”.
“But thankfully we haven’t had shocking results,” Geoff said.
The property received 130 millimetres of rain for the year, with 107mm falling in the growing season.
“The main reason we got a crop this year is that we got 110mm late last year,” Geoff said. “It ruined half the harvest, but that stored moisture was the only difference between life and death this season.”
Geoff says they average about 2t/ha on cereals, but the variable season, with frosts, lack of rain and bad timing if they did get rain, meant patches varied from 0.3t/ha in lupins up to 1.9t/ha in wheat.
“We had very bad frosts this year, which wiped out most of our peas, turning it into hay,” he said.
“We are lucky to have a lot of sandy ground, ‘Big Desert’ country, so we can usually get something off of it most years.”
