South eastern Australians are more than familiar with our regions’ ever-changing climate; good old fashioned climate variability bringing drought one year and floods the next! Farmers and businesses do an amazing job of adapting their farming practices to fit our variable climate, making the most of  'good rainfall' years and managing risks to limit losses in poor years.

Climate has a particularly huge impact on Australia’s grains growers. With rainfall patterns becoming more erratic and temperatures more extreme, growers, advisors and supply chains need to be prepared for what mother nature throws at them, now more than ever.

A guide for farmers in using seasonal forecasts in South Eastern Australia

This publication includes: 

• About the GRDC's Using Seasonal Forecasting Project
• Words of Wisdom - key messages about using seasonal forecasting
• Climate drivers that affect South Eastern Australia
• Insights into seasonal forecasting - an interview with Agriculture Victoria's Dale Grey
• Caution in Autumn - Autumn predictability barrier
• Interpreting seasonal forecasts
• Forecasts4Profit & Local Climate Tool
• Insights into soil moisture monitoring
• Why forecasters look closely at Sea Surface Temperatures - a dry versus wet pattern
• Case study one - Farming by numbers allows for variability in forecasting
• Case study two - Seasonal tools frame big-picture vision
• Case study three - Range of forecasting tools useful for variability
• Case study four - Consensus informs strategic step-change
• Case study five - Seasonal forecasting helping to reduce the risks
• Case study six - Bending with the seasons in Mallee country
• Case study seven - Forecast knowledge is power in the low rainfall zone
• Case study eight - Forecast consulting makes for educated farming decisions
• Case study nine - Seasonal tools fine-tune investment
• Case study ten - A mix of tools to make the best of the good years and ride out the tough ones

Climate Sensitive Decisions - Fast Graphs for Slow Thinking

As with many on-farm decisions, slowing down and thinking through the potential outcomes (or ‘imagining the future with rigour’) can support the decision-making process. However, before we can attempt to pull Seasonal Climate Forecasts into some sort of decision making process, we need to understand the implications of climate on the potential outcomes of the decisions. One way of providing a level of rigour to this process is to describe the decision problems in terms of a graph; an idea developed and demonstrated in this GRDC article by Dr. Peter Hayman (SARDI), Barry Mudge (low rainfall farmer from Port Germein, SA) and Mark Stanley (Regional Connections, Eyre Peninsula).