‘Unexpected and frustrating’: Cadoux and Bencubbin farmers count cost of damage after hail hits crops

Grain growers in the central Wheatbelt are counting the cost of an “unexpected and frustrating” lashing of hail and heavy rainfall at the weekend on crops just about ready to harvest. Farmers in the Cadoux, Bodallin and Bencubbin areas reported the icy deluge about 2pm on Saturday, carpeting crops and turning paddocks white. Accompanied by almost 50mm of rain for some, it filled dams but marked a less than ideal start to the 2022-23 harvest. Some have lost whole paddocks, while others reported pockets of crop damage. Cadoux farmer Shaun Kalajzic — who crops 5300ha with his wife Tinneil and parents Michael and Rhonda — said the deluge their farms copped on Sunday afternoon was a far cry from the 1-5mm forecasted. “I haven’t seen a storm like that in a very long time, she was pretty intense,” he said. “We were harvesting barley and saw this weather coming in and I said to our worker, ‘I don’t like the look of it and I don’t like the feel of it.’ “It just went dead still and on the radar it was just basically circling.” They knocked off and 10 minutes later, it began to rain. 10mm fell on their home farm. When the weather cleared about an hour later, Mr Kalajzic and his wife went for a drive to his parents’ place, after hearing reports of hail and heavy rain from neighbours. “Sure enough, they’d had 50mm and there was still hail everywhere,” he said. Finishing assessments of the damage on Tuesday, Mr Kalajzic said they felt “extremely lucky” it had not been worse. About 200ha of canola and another 200ha of wheat sustained 20-30 per cent damage, with one 40ha paddock of canola almost wiped out completely. Mr Kalajzic said the fact their crops were still a bit green, and the small size of the hail, had been their saving grace. “We do consider ourselves pretty darn lucky,” he said. “We do have damage over a large area, but it’s definitely not like what it could have been. There’s people far worse off than us. “The neighbours next door lost their entire canola paddock because their canola was riper than ours, so a bit more volatile and more fragile.” It will take the top off what was looking to be a record crop for the family, after a wet growing season, had them sitting at 425mm for the year, about 100mm above their average. “We’ve basically had a dream run up until now,” Mr Kalajzic said. “It’s probably taken a little bit of the shine off, but it’s definitely still going to be a good year. “You’ve just got to push through and it’s not very nice that it happens, but as everyone says, ‘that’s farming.’” North Bodallin’s Sarah Della Bosca said 10-45mm fell across the family’s properties, with hail damage on about 25 per cent of their cropping program. “We had) hail damage on roughly 1000ha. . . with damage ranging from minimal up to 50-60 per cent in a few paddocks,” she said. “The crop around the farm was looking well above average, so it’s a bit disappointing and disheartening for some of it to be destroyed/damaged in what was shaping up to be one of our better years out of the last 20.” Upon inspecting the damage, her father-in-law Rodney Della Bosca was able to scoop up cricket ball-sized handfuls of hail from the ground. The storm cell moved south easterly from there with some growers in the Great Southern and Esperance regions recording more than 70mm from it. It comes just a week after widespread rain across much of the grain-growing regions pressed pause on headers for those in the throes of harvesting and struck hay growers mid-bale hard, downgrading the quality of what was left on the ground. Some growers have clocked triple figures from Sunday, October 23 to Sunday, October 30, with the soggiest paddocks in Wellstead (162.4mm), Manypeaks (121.6mm), Gairdner (114.6mm), Munglinup (94.8mm) and Mount Howick (92mm). Wellstead Rural’s Nathan Dovey said growers in the area had not been too concerned about the previous weekend’s rain, but the latest falls would likely cause some headaches. Assessors are out on paddocks this week assessing the damage, with some crops hit by hail and heavy rain laying on the ground. Mr Dovey said some growers had clocked up more than 180mm for October, with harvest unlikely to start for another week as sodden paddocks prevented machinery movement across the area. “The paddocks are just so wet,” he said. “One farmer had a bit of canola in a field bin that’s too wet — 10 per cent moisture — and they can barely even get the chaser bin out to the paddock to unload it. “That’s how wet it is at the moment.” As well as wastage and a delayed start to harvest, growers would likely face quality issues off the back of the falls, with colour and staining of the region’s bumper crops a possibility. “There’s some fantastic looking crops around the place — until October it had been very much a near-perfect season,” Mr Dovey said. “It’s going to have some sort of effect, but how much is the question.” Isolated hail storms were also felt in the Peel region, where North Dandalup families reported flooding and hail so thick the kids could make ‘snow angels’ out of it. WA rainfall totals Oct 22 – 31 Amelup – 92mm Bencubbin – 39.2mm Coomalbidgup – 81.6mm Denmark – 70.8mm Dumbleyung – 65.8mm Esperance – 67.4mm Gairdner – 114.6mm Hyden – 52.4mm Jerramungup – 85.4mm Katanning – 65.8mm Kondinin – 47mm Lake King – 50.6mm Lort River – 82.8mm Magenta – 56.2mm Manypeaks – 121.6mm Mount Barker – 79.8mm Mount Howick – 92mm Munglinup – 94.8mm Narrikup – 83.2mm Pingelly – 39.4mm Ravensthorpe – 86.2mm Wagin – 54.4mm Wellstead – 162.4mm