Liverpool Plains Winter Crop Update 20th Sept 05

These pictures are taken through the NW corner of the Liverpool Plains, this would be an area roughly 30km in radius from the town of Mullaley.
The Mullaley / Boggabri area of the Cox's Creek flood plain is a very productive area and will often produce ADR1 and APH, one of the few area to readily do this across the Liverpool Plains.
2005 winter crop production for this quadrant is roughly 83k.
18k Barley, this area rarley malts
22k Bread Wheat
43k Durum Wheat

This area will flow to Boggabri in the NW, Emerald Hill (Durum) and Gunnedah in the central and Premer in the SW edge of the quadrant. On farm storage in this area is minimal.

There is also about 2,000acres of canola scattered across the area.


The Canola, like the wild turnip, is currently in full flower. Yields look like they could be as good as any year, with the above crop fully capable of a 1 - 1.2 tonne per acre average if the season continues to be favourable. The canola and most of the other crop in this area are much more advanced than the rest of the plain due to an early storm before the main break in June.



This is a average barley crop in the Mullaley area, to the north of Mullaley some of the early crops (35%) would be just sending a head up with another 30% not even advanced enough to have the first node. The majority is like this picture and looks very good after a further 10-15mm of rain on the weekend. The yield potential of the late barley is very difficult to determine as a hard spring will make it suffer considerably. The average and early barley looks good with 8 - 12 tillers on most plants, some aphid spraying is taking place in barley, not a common practice. The earlier crop should yield between 1.6 and 2.2t / acre depending on the finish.


The crop is thick and lush with ample subsoil moisture at this stage. Gardiner continues to be the most favoured variety on the LPP with around 80% of the crop being sown to this variety. Other varieties are predominantly Grimmett and Binnalong. There is no sign of any leaf desease as yet and with aphid control looking high on the agenda this may stay the case.



The late sown wheat is tillering well but looks likely to be limited to 6 - 8 tillers in many cases by the late plant and warm conditions in August. This may assist in limiting the amount of pinched grain in the event of a hot spring but will also restrict production potential considerably across the top of the plain.



Rows are filling in well and most post emergent spaying has been completed, the crops walked through today were clean and weed free. Some fields were a little patchy due to the wet planting conditions, again a factor that may not assist in helping the crop compensate for the late plant.