Happy Jacaranda Storm Season

Once again, the jacarandas and silky oaks are in full bloom and the storm bird has arrived to sing his haunting song. Our western four seasons, Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, don’t do justice to the subtle, but significant changes through the year. So, for a number of years now I’ve been calling this the Jacaranda Storm Season. It is both warm enough, so that if we do get storms, our tropical grasses will have a good chance of starting to grow. And everyday that goes by is a day closer to having the season break and rain falling.

The better we’ve been managing our grazing, (matching the number of animals to the amount of grass that we grow, and the better we adjust the time between grazes based on how fast the grass is growing), the better our soil health, the better our water infiltration and the better our water holding capacity. These improvements combined mean that with better grazing management, the quicker our pastures will respond to rain in this Jacaranda Storm Season and explode out of the ground as these first storms and subsequent waves rumble across and dump the rain across the country.

This is one of my favourite times of the year. So, wishing you a happy Jacaranda Storm Season and may you be under some handy storms and nothing too nasty.