Back in the tractor this year on the Palmer family's Cohuna property. This season is looking much better after the pain of the 2022 floods.
It was spring 2022 and Stu and Cecilia Palmer were looking forward to a bumper season on their Cohuna dairy farm — a season which potentially included harvesting about 3500 rolls of hay and silage.
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Stu’s dad came out to have a look at 101 hectares (250 acres) of vetch and oats and commented at the time he had never seen the farm look better.
Just three short weeks later, it was all gone.
And so was Stu’s mojo for a short time.
“I went to bed one particular night thinking I was going to sell the cows and I even contacted an agent. The next day I woke up, thought ‘no, bugger that, I have worked too hard and I am going to get through this the best way I can’, and I am so glad I did,” Stu said.
“When you are stressed, you don’t necessarily make the right decisions and I just needed to talk to some calm heads and give myself a bit of time.”
The pain of the great 2011 flood still lingered in Stu’s mind. At that point, things were so bad on the home property that Stu made the decision to lease another farm, Field Capacity Pty Ltd Bamawm, and move his whole dairy operation away for 10 months.
“I vowed I would never do that again, so this time around I sold 50 cows, dried off the autumn calvers early and made the decision to just get by for the season,” Stu said.
Despite losing about 283ha of grass and crops, Stu was lucky about 57ha surrounding the house and dairy remained dry.
“I had saved 30 acres (12ha) for the cows to graze because we knew the floods were coming and I was able to cut some silage even though it wasn’t great quality. Our block across the road doesn’t flood and I was able to cut another 200 rolls of hay and silage, then put the autumn cows in.”
Saving as much hay and silage as they could in the face of floodwater last October.
In the end, Stu ended up with about 500 rolls of silage and 180 rolls of hay, although the quality wasn’t all that great.
He had to buy in a large quantity of cereal hay to get through winter and it was pretty disheartening knowing production was down and he couldn’t capitalise on the bumper milk prices of the 2022 season.
But the 2023 season is looking far more positive.
“I am expecting to cut around 4000 rolls of hay and silage this year, which should be enough to get me through for the next two-and-a-half years,” Stu said.
Stu has already cut 600 rolls of silage and has enough grass to feed 320 cows, instead of the 220 he is currently milking.
The other positive is eldest son Jude has been home working on the farm since February.
“Jude has brightened the whole place up and got me motivated and inspired,” Stu said.
“He has been great to have around and has been a big help, especially cutting hay and silage because he loves being in the tractor.”
Stu has been dairy farming for 39 years and has been on the Cohuna property for the past 24 years.
He has no current plans to increase the herd size above 220 split calving cows (a quarter autumn and the rest spring) because he is limited to some degree by the shed.
“Milking 220 cows suits our 20 swing over. Who knows, if Jude sticks around, we might look at doing something with the dairy in the future.”
Stu believes water reform, implementation of the basin plan and the way the system is now run is contributing to the severity and frequency of floods.
“This was my great-grandfather’s farm originally. It flooded here in 1907, 1916 and 1923 and then didn’t flood again for nearly 90 years until 2011 and then again in 2022,” he said.
“Both these floods were pretty big and extremely destructive.”
Stu Palmer's Cohuna farm under water in October 2022.
