CANEGROWERS Around the Paddock
CANEGROWERS advocates on behalf of sugarcane growers in Australia. This podcast series examines some key issues and challenges and celebrates the successes.
CANEGROWERS Around the Paddock
Rampaging rats wreak havoc
In this episode Herbert River growers discuss what's driving an explosion in the rat population, the costs to local growers and the wider industry, and what is being done to address the problem.
This is Cangrowers Shed Talk where growers discuss the things that are affecting them at the moment with their neighbours. I'm Robin Devine, and today we're here in Sunny Herbert River with some of the directors of the board of Cangrows Herbert River, and we're going to be talking about some of the issues to do with rats that are very severe and serious in the district. So, firstly, welcome gentlemen.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you. Welcome.
SPEAKER_01:And I'll get you to just introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I'm Chris Bosworth, I'm chairman of Cangrows Herbert River.
SPEAKER_03:Stephen Marbelli, Director, Deputy Chairman of Cangro's River River.
SPEAKER_04:And Sam Teresi, Director on Cangro's Heavy River.
SPEAKER_01:How big is the Herbert River?
SPEAKER_04:So the Herbert has about 67,000 hectares that's available for cane, but we harvest only 56,000 every year, the rest is fallow. So we generally aim for a crop over 4 million, over 5 is a really good year, and we were heading for about a 5 million ton crop last year until uh the weather intervened and a number of other factors. So it's a very productive district, and when we get everything right, but in the wet tropics, um the main bone of contention is always the wet season, the forecast wet season when it comes and what happens. So yeah, we're at the mercy of the weather gods. How's the crop looking? Uh the crop is a mixed bag this year. We have a lot of standover, and we have a lot of cane that was cut late in the year that people have had to return. So the early cane that was cut is very good to excellent, but then as the standover, we have 4,900 hectares of standover, which I believe probably 3,000 hectares of that will not be harvested. So to me, that's a loss to the district if you average it out a hundred tonne a hectare, and uh the district will lose about$75 a tonne between growers and miller, and that's probably around$23 million that will be lost to the district because of standover and because of rats damage to that standover.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, that's that's a lot. That's an awful lot. Um, and so why is this situation with rats differing than previous years?
SPEAKER_04:Um it's a complicated uh pro story, I suppose. But we had a lot of rain last year. We lost 35 days to wet weather, and that contributed to the late finish, plus we lost probably 11 days through poor mill performance. So all up we lost a lot of time. But because of the steady rain that we've had, and we've had a mild wet, normally we have floods which kill a lot of the rats. We have not had that this year, so the rat population in all of these low-lying areas, which were left because of the in a wet area, didn't get floods, the rat numbers have exploded. And hence they've just chewed and to the extent there's nothing left.
SPEAKER_01:So, Steve, is that similar? Is that the situation that's happening on your farm? Have you got rat problems?
SPEAKER_00:I think rats are pretty broadly right around the whole district. Whoever has got standover left, the rats are harbouring in in that standover, and I think they're living in there and continuously eating the new shoots of the standover and um completely decimating it.
SPEAKER_01:How do you get rid of rats?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, in the herbage here, we've got two two main rat problems. So it's using the ground rat or the climbing rat. Um, both are causing major damage around the district. Um the ground rat has been predominantly the the worst rat in the standover crops. Um they've burned out of control. Um the climbing rat is now starting to present a problem in the one-year cane, um, which I've noticed on my properties around riverbanks, um, they're starting to get into the crop already. So we've got a we've got that problem as well. Uh so not just the standover, but the one-year cane in some situations is starting to get chewed already. Um, once again, this has happened because um the harborage, usual harborage areas around the riverbanks haven't been flooded, so the the numbers have been able to build up over the wet season. Um, one way of managing rats is trying to keep those harborage areas as clean as possible by slashing head headlands and maybe spraying um creek banks and trying to plant some vegetation on there, some trees that will smother out the grasses because rats like to feed on the seed of grasses. Um, so that's um one way of um helping curb their breeding cycle. Um, we've also got um zinc phosphate um saschies that we can bait with um around the headlands um and in the crop. Um they're pretty useful, but once again, uh if you let the numbers of the rats get out of control, um that sort of baiting um doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01:That sounds like that's an expensive option, expensive thing they have to do.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, well it's not only the baits that line up at price, um, but you then have to hire a helicopter to if you're going to strategically bait standover cane, to that's the only way you can get them spread throughout the crop. And I think I've talked to Stephen before about if you take when you do put the baits out, you don't kill all the rats. You kill a proportion of them, and then two months, three months later, you're back where you started from.
SPEAKER_01:So you've got to do it all again.
SPEAKER_04:And it is just not e economic to keep throwing out baits, and I don't think I think we can only use them twice in the one crop per year.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, of course. So there's environmental regulations around this as well. So growers have to be on top of all of that as well.
SPEAKER_04:Definitely.
SPEAKER_02:I mean what one of the main problems is um a growers you look at their fields and they start to see the rat damage. Um, usually by time it's visible, it's almost too late to uh to start baiting because those numbers are you know to the number to the extent where they're out of control and the baiting's not going to be affected.
SPEAKER_01:So we went out earlier, um Stephen, Chris, you showed me um a property that was whereabouts was that that long feet four drive roof.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And um sadly there was a big infestation that's been through and there by the looks of things.
SPEAKER_00:So potentially baiting that crop, you would only potentially take out 50% of the rats, the rest that are under the ground, you would have to do at a later date at more expense.
SPEAKER_01:So more import costs?
SPEAKER_00:Probably not feasible.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, look, it's a going to be a huge blow to the district. And um, like I said, I think I said before, on top of that, a lot of late harvested cane. It is quite dry here now. So we were complaining months ago it was too wet. Now it's the taps have been completely turned off and it has come dry. Not in all of the district, but certainly this southern section is quite dry. And so the late stuff, um, people are gonna have to decide whether what they're gonna do with this cane that's probably yielding less than twenty ton a hectare.
SPEAKER_01:So what are the options? What what are the options for a grow? What do they face when to make the decision?
SPEAKER_04:Well, you've got to look at financially how you're gonna make the most of it. Um possibly some of that late yi low yielding, late cut, low yielding, um they might have to uh try to slash it and return it. Slash it, mulch it, return it, because it probably at the price of harvesting, no one's gonna want to um spend money trying to harvest stuff that's uh 20 tonne a hectare or less. And I think that's the options uh is cut it earlier, uh get rid of it early, term uh either terminate it completely or return it early, fertilize it and hope for the best, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02:You know, if if you if the profile of the cane's still standing, there's there is an option of multiplying the crop. Um, that's bringing possibly two rows into one and trying to um multiply the volume so it makes it more um economically viable to harvest the crop. So that's that is another option, but the conditions have got to suit um the multiplier to be able to work in that condition.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, with the standover cane, you were talking about having to burn.
SPEAKER_00:Potentially, so we get as a grower, we get paid for sugar. So that crop wasn't paid for last year, got no income out of that crop last year. So it's in the grower's best interest to do what he needs to do this year to at least get some revenue out of that crop. Now, whether that's be burning it to reduce the rubbish in there to send to the mill to get paid for, or discing it out, because if you send it, pay the harvest and not get paid for it is another expense. So I think it's a big learning curve at this stage until we get into it. The timing is uh very important, gonna be very important, timing of when to cut that crop. So it is um it is a big learning curve at this stage.
SPEAKER_04:We have had other years where we've had standover, but we've been able to by and large harvest it and harvest most of that green because it was still alive, and while it might have been either reduced tons and reduced sugar, it was still economical to harvest it because we didn't have the rat problem, because we would have had those the years where we they've come through and we've had our normal wet where it killed the rats. So this is probably fair quite unique where we've had the the situation that's led to this rat population explosion, and it's gonna be a learn and curve for all of us. So we'll have to just watch this space and see how it pans out, and and um maybe by the end of the year we'll have some information on what we should do and should do, but we really do not like standover in the tropics, not only here in the herb but but more or less anywhere in the tropics, standover isn't a good option.
SPEAKER_00:And then saying that next year standover will be a different story altogether. So we may have learned absolutely nothing moving forward.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, other options growers got is is to try and just send send in samples, uh small seables, um, to get uh some idea of what CCS that crop might have and whether it's going to be viable to harvest or not. Um if those results come in too low, the option might be just to try and destroy the crop.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so that's some good suggestions there for those that are in the situation.
SPEAKER_04:Um essentially they should be talking to the Well, we have local prod boards and SRA, um, everyone's got a probably an opinion and yeah, take some guidance, but I don't think anyone is going to have a right or wrong answer. It's um gonna be like I think Sam said, if you take do tests, strategically test, cut a bit and send it in, that'll probably inform you how you would then proceed.
SPEAKER_01:The big thing from it is you know, try and seek advice and support, um, and the support's there.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, the support's there. Yeah, like we have um a couple organisations that work here that um that that's what they do, productivity boards. So um they probably be their first port of call for most people to see um get some advice from them to see the way forward.
SPEAKER_01:And the weather conditions at the moment, do we want a bit of rain?
SPEAKER_02:Stam, same the weather, man. Yeah, well at the moment actually, um well we're pretty dry for this time of the year. Things have dried out um uh quite a lot. Um, yeah, so uh a little bit of rain wouldn't go straight at the moment. Um uh to um just put a bit of bit of moisture back in the soil, uh especially for the um autumn planting that's happening at the moment. Um some drop blocks are drying out pretty fast.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, saying that our members are looking forward to a dry harvest, so it would be good to get it dry. Because we're always looking for the perfect combination.
SPEAKER_01:Well, good luck to you, and we wish you all a really good harvest, and um we'll see what lessons we learn at the end um when we get to that stage.
SPEAKER_04:Thanks very much, Rob. Thank you to the district.