Brilliant season start for Matilda rice at Coleambally
Anthony Avery and Justin Sutherland in a field of Matilda rice at Gunnawarra, south west of Coleambally. Photos: Supplied
After three wetter years, third-generation Riverina rice grower Justin Sutherland is looking forward to a return to more "normal" summer conditions.
"It feels like we're going back into a normal summer for once," he said.
"The last three years have been very wet and humid, but this is just brilliant. A nice, hot, dry start to summer, and cool nights. It's good."
Mr Sutherland and his partner Amanda, crop 1320ha at Gunnawarra, south west of Coleambally.
They produce irrigated winter crops of wheat and seed canola, and summer crops of cotton, rice and seed sorghum.
Planting decisions are largely determined by water availability, so there is no such thing as a standard rotation.
In many cases though, Mr Sutherland said paddocks that produced cotton would be sown into wheat, then fallowed for a cotton crop in 18 months' time.
Half to three quarters of the rice ground is cropped two years in a row, followed in the third year by a winter crop.
Last year's 60ha of Sicot 714B3F cotton yielded well, averaging 12.7 bales per hectare, while average yields for the 180ha of Matilda rice were 10.7t/ha.
This year's winter crops were 760ha of Coolah and Sunmaster wheat, and seed canola for Pioneer Seeds. The wheat harvest is likely to start in 10-14 days with expected yields of 5-6t/ha. The 150ha of canola will be direct headed.
Average annual rainfall is 420mm, although it can be highly variable. The 755mm recorded in 2022 was a new record, boosted by record falls in both October (236mm) and November (108mm).
Mr Sutherland said 2024 started off well but dried out after September, forcing him to finish the wheat and canola seed on an extra watering compared to the previous two years. By the end of October the rainfall tally had reached 320mm, 211mm of it recorded during the growing season.
Water is sourced from Coleambally Irrigation Co-operative which draws surface water from the Murrumbidgee River just upstream of Gogeldrie Weir.
Irrigation systems are a combination of lateral move sprinklers, siphons and bankless channel layouts, as well as rice layouts.
Irrigation allocations are at 34 per cent for general security water with carryover of about 30pc after the season opened on July 1 at 27pc.
"The allocations have just stopped at that ... they've just stagnated," he said.
"The catchment is very dry, so it's a little bit of a concern going forward, I think. Not so much for this summer crop we've got in the ground - we have enough water to get that through - but for next year's winter crop."
Mr Sutherland said he had chosen to grow Matilda rice since its release because of its many advantages over other varieties.
"I've always had good success with the main medium grain variety," he said.
"That's pretty much the main reason: yield and profitability."
Formerly known as VO71, the variety was officially renamed Matilda in September, after three years of NSW DPI trials confirmed its superiority to Reiziq, the industry standard bold medium-grain rice since 2004.
In the trials, Matilda returned average yields 1.43t/ha higher, was more tolerant of cool temperatures and was less prone to shattering than Reiziq, which in 2021 accounted for 70pc of plantings across southern NSW.
Preparation began with one pass by an 11m Horwood Bagshaw Scaribar, followed by an 8m K-Line Speedtiller then a final pass with a grader board.
One of the rice fields was also set up with 72 inch (1.8m) wide shallow beds to improve drainage.
The 120ha crop was direct drilled from October 8 at 140kg/ha of seed using a 24 foot (7.3m) Boss double disc planter on nine inch (23cm) row spacings, with 200kg/ha of Granulock Z. The crop was then flushed using about 0.75 megalitres per hectare.
"We've had an excellent start for both the rice and the cotton," Mr Sutherland said.
"The conditions we've had have been brilliant."
The rice has just had its third flush and the grass herbicide Agixa will be applied to control barnyard grass in the next week or two.
The plan is to apply variable rate urea at 300-450kg/ha in early December before the fields are filled to a depth of about 5cm and kept ponded until late February.
Depending on temperatures in January, the water depth might be increased to 25cm to protect the plants from cold damage at the sensitive microspore stage.
The crop will be monitored for signs of disease and pests such as armyworm, and drained two weeks before harvest in late March or early April.
Despite the presence of large numbers of ducks and other waterbirds in the area, Mr Sutherland doesn't expect them to give the crop much grief.
"Although they can start grazing if you get some weak patches in a paddock, which we did have last year," he said.
