THIS week's rain has brought slight relief for the Konzag family, who are more than two-thirds of the way through their 2400-hectare cropping program at Mallala.
Richard and Trish Konzag, with son Ryan and nephew Simon Lutt, started seeding on April 22, with beans, barley, hay and lentils completed.
They were sowing Scepter wheat on Tuesday when 1.8 millimetres was received on property east of Mallala, while more was expected later in the week.
They also had 18mm last week, but then only 3mm for the year before that.
"We have cut canola from this year's program because of the dry and poor market conditions and increased our barley area, while lentils have also been reduced and replaced with beans and chickpeas," Ryan said.
"We will also cut back our durum area because of herbicide residues in our pulse crops."
We have maximum stubble retention so the dry has enabled our discs to get through it easier.
- RYAN KONZAG
One positive has been that the dry conditions have enabled them to get through the seeding program quickly.
"We have maximum stubble retention so the dry has enabled our discs to get through it easier," Ryan said.
This could be the third below-average season for the Konzags, after only receiving about 259mm of annual rainfall last year (average is 395mm), and similar in 2017.
"Our growing season rainfall last year was 175mm," Ryan said.
"The majority fell in August, which did get us out of jail, but the GSR average is normally 300mm-plus.
"When my dad started farming however, he would have never expected to reap the crops we have on such little rain.
"Modern farming practices have still allowed us to grow a crop in a 'drought' year."
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