Late planted popcorn paying off for Qld growers

Rob and Danni Ingram, Avondale Farming, Emerald, planted 130 hectares of Dolphin Seeds Butterfly popcorn and 120 ha of gritting corn this season.

A crop that's not widely grown in Australia due to the limited number of contracts awarded, the Ingram's are the only growers in the region who are growing the long season popcorn variety.

Related: Emerald growers trial long-season popcorn

The Ingram's took advantage of rain in late March to plant outside their normal planting window.

Predominantly an irrigated cotton grower, Mr Ingram said both the popcorn and gritting corn are growing well, and they are expecting to harvest the crop in September.

"It's been a tough season, as we had to plant late due to receiving our water allocations late in the season," Mr Ingram said.

"We planted the corn outside our normal planting window and we like to plant it somewhere between the first week of March and the last couple of weeks in February, due to frost risk.

"We weren't able to do that this year, so rather than growing a winter crop we decided we would push the boundaries and we planted in the last week of March and it was probably emerging in the first week of April.

"Into the future, we want to be that little bit earlier, but this year because we didn't get allocations from the Fairbairn dam till early April and we got planting rain so we planted it."

Planting corn as late as April goes against the grain for most farmers, who increasingly favour getting crops in early to lessen the impact of frost.

Mr Ingram said their crops have been affected by the fall armyworm and that they've also received frost in April.

"We've had some frost in our higher country and the popcorn has been frosted but it's only frosted the top leaves at this stage. We're hoping there hasn't been a lot of damage," he said.

"Normally you plant corn anywhere from January to the end of February, but I think the earlier you go the more you're going to get hammered with fall armyworm.

"You have to try and find that happy medium between the fall armyworm and frost risk.

"We've hung our hats on it so far and it seems to have worked out. We don't really know where the yields are going to be, but it's growing alright."

Mr Ingram said they'll be harvesting in September, but would prefer to be harvesting now, as their corn country goes back into cotton.

"A few guys in the central highlands in the past five or six years have grown popcorn but I think due to the dry weather, we're probably one of the last to do it," he said.

"Corn is a pretty good rotational crop for our cotton. We like it and we can get a little bit of help from rain that time of year then we do with our cotton.

"It's worked for us, because we're still getting a pretty good return out of it and it gives us an opportunity to grow a summercrop where we can't grow the cotton."

The Ingram's supply their corn varieties to Lachlan Commodities, which Mr Ingram said gives them an alternative supply opportunity.

"For Lachlan Commodities to get a popcorn growing further north and if they have a problem sourcing popcorn down south they've got a foot in the door in central Queensland," he said.

"I don't normally grow gritting corn, but this year we did because there probably wasn't the demand there for the popcorn market due to COVID and cinemas not operating.

Lack of rainfall did reduce the overall cotton yield for most growers on the central highlands, with Mr Ingram adding the low water allocations had reduced the overall cotton plant.

"Our cotton wasn't that great compared to the previous year. We harvested 200 ha of cotton this season to yield six bales per hectare," he said.

"We got an extension to the Bollgard window in the first two weeks of January and we actually planted in that first two weeks of January on rain and then it was a semi dry land crop from there on.

"The crop didn't get it's first drink till the first week of March and we ended up only using about three megalitres to the hectare."

- courtesy Queensland Country Life.

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