Barry West cropping on despite global fuel and fertiliser uncertainty

Kulin grain grower Barry West is keeping a positive outlook on this year’s cropping program despite fuel and fertiliser uncertainty, after receiving some much-needed rain following the break up of ex-tropical Cyclone Narelle.

Starting his seeding on April 1, Mr West is planning on putting in about 2000ha of canola, 2000ha of barley, 1000ha of wheat, and some lupins and oats for the winter crop season.

His cropping operations will span from Kulin to a property at Westdale, where he ran sheep across last year to ready it for cropping this year.

Mr West has about 1000 head of merinos remaining after selling all of his ewes last year, but stopped short of selling his remaining flock as a result of fuel and fertiliser supply and pricing concerns.

He has about half of the required diesel needed for his seeding — about 50,000 litres — but will need more of a supply to finish his operations.

He said his broker was playing a delicate balancing act to ensure fuel was spread to his other clients as well.

Seeding at Mr West’s Kulin farm stopped on April 6 with plans to resume once moisture in the soil increased.

“We pulled up actually, we’re a bit dry so we’ve saw it’s going to be a patch of germination so we’ve stopped,” he said.

“We only had between 14 and 20mm (over the weekend of March 28 and 29), in three different gauges, and we had no subsoil moisture before that.

“It kind of went just to the north-east of us, a good strip went through Bullaring and Kondinin, and even South Kumminin near Narambeen.

“I’d say Bruce Rock would have got a pretty good drop out of it through there as well.”

His Westdale farm received slightly more, recording 38mm.

“Our plan was to stop, let it dry out properly — because it’s soaking up pretty quick — and then we’ll start seeding again, but we’ll be seeding dry,” Mr West said.

Mr West said he had noticed his Kulin farm had in recent years not attracted as much rain, sitting on the edge of rain bands that form and travel through the area.

“We were sort of on the edge of it . . . we’ve been like that the last five years, that same strip seems to be attracting the upper level rain at the moment which is rather interesting — it’s following the same track line all the time,” he said.

Despite the decline in WA’s sheep flock, Mr West is a firm believer the State’s sheep industry will always exist even if it changes over time.

“We’re trying for that sweet spot where the cropping meets the number of hectares that’s going to be cropped every year, starts to stabilise, which will determine the tonnage that has to be exported out of WA,” he said.

“We’re still on a rise in tonnage delivery due to hectares coming out of stock and going into crop.”