The small number of winter crops growing near communities such as Gilgandra and Coonamble may defy the current heatwave as they are almost ready for harvesting, reports Imag Consulting agronomist Glenn Shepherd.
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But the Dubbo-based agronomist said less-advanced cereal crops closer to Dubbo would be starting to experience “pretty serious heat stress”.
“It will slow down their respiration rate and reduce their ability to fill their grain,” he said. “We run the risk that the crops, rather than filling what they can, shut off a bit early.”
The agronomist said harvesting in the area taking in Gilgandra and Coonamble could begin within a week or 10 days.
“So the heat may have little impact on those because they are almost finished anyway,” he said.
Mr Shepherd told of “limited planting” of winter crops in the Dubbo region in 2018 because of the drought.
“A lot of what has been planted has been grazed or sprayed or cut for hay,” he said. “Our harvest will be significantly down this year.”
The agronomist said summer cropping had seen “a reasonable amount of sorghum planted for forage and grain”, which would be put “under a significant amount of stress” if the heat continued.
But pastures were probably most at risk from the heat, he said.
“While there is a nice green pick around at the moment, another week or 10 days of hot weather and that will burn off pretty quickly,” Mr Shepherd said.
The agronomist said farmers “find a job to do in the shed” when the temperature rises.
“It’s just what they expect,” he said.
“We can have heat anytime from October through to February and March.”
A heatwave at this time of year was “not uncommon, not unprecedented”, Mr Shepherd said.
“It has happened before and will happen again,” he said.
“But it is slightly disappointing coming off the back of good rain for some.
“Not everyone got as much rain as Dubbo.”
On Thursday morning Mr Shepherd was circumspect about a forecast of rain next week.
“Beyond four days it gets very difficult to have any degree of accuracy, particularly when you start talking about storms,” he said.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s seven-day forecast for Dubbo as of Thursday tells of a 40 per cent chance of up to 3 millimetres (mm) of rain falling on Monday, a 40 per cent chance of up to 15mm on Tuesday and a 30 per cent chance of up to 5mm on Wednesday.
Dubbo received 90.4 mm of rain in October.
