Australlian drought/heatwave

Kiwi Pete

Member
Livestock Farmer
I personally think the past, in Australian context, must have been absolutely brutal; how else can the evolution of their wildlife and plants have resulted in such extreme adaptations?

Those are my clues, agreed much of the current debate about "climate change" is rather moot - but this is in our own context, not necessarily nature's.
Nature doesn't put people at the centre of the universe, we do that; but burning megatons of fossil fuels etc sure isn't going to cool the planet down.
 

Bury the Trash

Member
Mixed Farmer
Really, my parents farm been in drought close on 20 years, rainfall has halved almost...i know this subject well...unfortunately.

Ant...
So in your parents area .will there still be farming ? or will they need to quit and move closer to the coast for instance Goydors line will need to be redrawn, that sort of thing …..
theres only so many years of sowing crops that fail, banks wont want to lend money for seed that doesn't grow to many times surely....
I'm interested as I also know people in this situation who are 'hanging on in there'………...
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Yes u correct, i meant 40,000. I built a minesite in WA where we protected the oldest known aboriginal drawings that were 38,000 years old. At hope downs minesite

Ant..

difficult to imagine drawings on a rock sat there for 38,000 years ain't it?

I'm not in the loop, but aren't current oldest remains around Lake Mungo, and circa 60k years? (but disputed, cos you soon run into alleged historic anti-abo bias)
 
difficult to imagine drawings on a rock sat there for 38,000 years ain't it?

I'm not in the loop, but aren't current oldest remains around Lake Mungo, and circa 60k years? (but disputed, cos you soon run into alleged historic anti-abo bias)

Remains and drawings are different, the drawings were in a cave, we fenced it off and fitted vibration sensors for monitoring when blasting.

Its in pilbara, so hot dry..they we in reasonable condition. The archaeologists said 38,000, im not familar with the testing but they seem to know there stuff.

Ant...
 
So in your parents area .will there still be farming ? or will they need to quit and move closer to the coast for instance Goydors line will need to be redrawn, that sort of thing …..
theres only so many years of sowing crops that fail, banks wont want to lend money for seed that doesn't grow to many times surely....
I'm interested as I also know people in this situation who are 'hanging on in there'………...

Who knows, we dont have enough recorded data on Australia to make an informed decision, at its current trend its not pretty, many are feeling the pinch in tjis region.

Cropping witj direct drilling has come along way so can grow more off less rain, without that it would be curtains now.

There is no such thing as normal it was a 500mm rain fall area but that might have been its peak for last 100 years or so.

My parents have sold sheep and leased farm due to health, but uf continued they were struggling, good gear to direct drill properly aint cheap.

Its sad to see, but thats planet earth, nothing stays the same and expecting it to when all the science shows its done nitji g but change is placing value in fools gold.

No one wants to sell in case it comes wet again, and its really a flip of the coin, so far its getting drier.

Ant...
 
The worst part is when they in drought price for grain is high but got none to sell, then they strike a lucky year, still not 500mm, say 400mm and grow decent crop and its worth nothing. So if there in drought so is everyone, if its better year, its a bumpa everywhere else.

Sheep is the only thing that saved them.

Ant...
 

glasshouse

Member
Location
lothians
Who knows, we dont have enough recorded data on Australia to make an informed decision, at its current trend its not pretty, many are feeling the pinch in tjis region.

Cropping witj direct drilling has come along way so can grow more off less rain, without that it would be curtains now.

There is no such thing as normal it was a 500mm rain fall area but that might have been its peak for last 100 years or so.

My parents have sold sheep and leased farm due to health, but uf continued they were struggling, good gear to direct drill properly aint cheap.

Its sad to see, but thats planet earth, nothing stays the same and expecting it to when all the science shows its done nitji g but change is placing value in fools gold.

No one wants to sell in case it comes wet again, and its really a flip of the coin, so far its getting drier.

Ant...
We had the same bullshi.t here when the spring cold snap was the "result of climate change"
My arse
 

Hilly

Member
Its as tragic as it gets, its extremely frustrating the dis information that is reported. Its click bait, the drought is the biggest weve had since records were kept, 100 years, we are a very young nation. Hot days are nothing new here.

For the region affected by drought we dont know really if its the longest and driest because of lack of records.

We should all expect climate to change because it always has...

The % man owns is the question but its not 100%, history and science show us this.

Climate change is being sold as 100% man made, thw bulk of populations now live in cities, so easy to dupe.

Ant...
Well said, im glad im not alone even though your far away(y)
 
I'm not sure many will remember John Cherrington who used to present the ITV farming programme & was a journalist. Also had a large farming business & inspired the formation of the Highlander sheep composite (the orginal breeder worked as a stundent for John in the 70's)

Mr Cherrington worked on a Aussie sheep station in the 1930's. He had a theory that the ancient Chinese knew about Australlia but considered it to be a harsh barren place occupied by very aggressive natives. A plausable theory especially when you think that America was known to some Vikings.

Indonesia would make more sense.
 

CornishTone

Member
BASIS
Location
Cornwall
Just my two pennies worth, I’ve only been here 4 years so probably not qualified to comment but, in the time I’ve been here I’ve been “fortunate” enough to see the wettest year on record and the driest/hottest year on record for SA. It hit 47 in my patch just before Christmas and we’ve had a run of 5 days above or at 40, plus a few others in between. Port Augusta hit 49 the other day and unofficially there were reports of 50 being nailed further north.

In the 2016 season we had blokes harvesting 8t/ha of wheat, this year we had several blokes who haven’t harvested a grain.

Now, it is summer so you expect it to be hot and I don’t mind the heat too much (although 47 is pretty ugly) but, from what I’m reading, it’s a case of the extremes getting more extreme and more frequent. Those two opposite extremes have been within 3 years of each other, maybe nothing more than coincidence but I think it’s deserving of a little more consideration.
 

onthehoof

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Cambs
difficult to imagine drawings on a rock sat there for 38,000 years ain't it?

E9C02464-9235-478C-B2A2-044DE842994E.jpeg
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
I can only imagine the damage it can do to our tourist and investment trade, having videos of Australia becoming so hot?? And then having people thinking the place will be unliveable in future.

Does canada get the same reasoning and videos with the snow coming in early destroying harvest? Or they good leftys so cant happen there?

Ant...
Snow delaying harvest doesn't kill off flora or fauna so that's a bad comparison. Early snow is not a prolonged drought.

As for tourism... well, any tourists that come here either greatly avoid winter or come here because of the snow. In which case, they aren't here for the winter or they get happier the more it snows. The people that don't like snow and cold figure Canada is already unliveable and don't come here. Somehow we've survived.

Australia has survived social media plastering it flooding all over the place. Then it survived social media plastering when the entire country seemed to turn into a giant burning fireball. I'm sure it will still be there after the videos about it being an oven. (I don't think Arizona shut down after the photos of all their signs and sh!t melting after their heatwave last year.)

People go to Australia for beaches and heat and marsupials, Australia still has beaches and heat and marsupials. If they wanted temperate conditions they'd go somewhere temperate. The dying of the Great Barrier Reef will probably have more affect on Australian tourism than anything.
 
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Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
For what it's worth... I think it's a moot point to argue that we don't have 1000 years of climate data to support what's average anywhere, especially regarding how it will affect agriculture and tourism.

We also don't have 1000 years of reports on modern, industrial agriculture to record how it reacts to things or 1000 years of reports of tourist trends. If someone isn't going to panic over the current climate because there isn't enough historic data to back it up, then it's hypocritical to get annoyed over sensationalized social media videos.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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