Doug and Antonietta Lee
Proserpine QLD

A fascination with computers started Proserpine cane grower Doug Lee on the track to finding more efficient and logical ways of managing his property. Doug was one of the farmers who used the climate prediction software package 'Rainman' in its original trials, giving feedback to the developers and contributing to the final form of the program.

Doug and Antonietta Lee are the third generation of Lees on the property at Proserpine. They have 140 hectares of land, growing 15,000 to 16,000 tonnes of cane each year. Most of the property is irrigated.

Doug is also the deputy chairman of the Kelsey Creek Water Board, a Canegrowers representative, deputy president of the Proserpine Landcare Group and an irrigation system coordinator responsible for allocating water to a group of ten neighbouring farmers.

'Doug got started with computers about five years ago' said Antonietta. 'He was always the book keeper. He always wants to know exactly where we are. We knew a few people at the time who used computers as expensive bookends. But he always loved it and he's onto his third or fourth computer now.'

'Our farm is fully computerised' said Doug.

'We record everything. We've got a harvester working now and within another two hours that cane will be at the sugar mill and we'll have figures on it downloaded straight from the mill through the computer.'

Doug's main tool for accessing climate and weather information is the Internet.

'We use the Internet a lot. The Bureau of Meteorology site is useful and the 50 day cycle (of cloud masses travelling across the Indian Ocean) is a good indicator at certain times of the year' said Doug.

'I did two weather workshops, one three years ago and one this year. That gave me the skills to start using the SOI, which is the main tool that we use, together with Rainman.'

The Lees rely heavily on a two-three month advance forecast to decide if they need to lease additional irrigation water.

'It can be very expensive if you stuff if up' said Doug. 'Before we had access to climate information it was like playing two-up.

'Last year we followed the SOI on the Internet. Rainman showed it would be a wet year. So when the harvesters came we cut very wet blocks to start with. By about August I thought I was wrong. So we started cutting a few dry blocks.

'Come September, I was right. In the end I cut 92 percent of our cane. Most of the other people in this area only cut to 70 percent. It was because of my planning. Though it could have been good luck too!

'We had some money left over and were ready to update our machinery. We had the choice of an irrigator or a tractor. Normally we would have bought the irrigator and it would have ended up just sitting there. Because of the indications of a wet year, we bought a tractor instead, which got great use.

'In the harvesting and the machinery examples we were absolutely spot on with using climate information' Doug said.

Antonietta said 'This year we started irrigating a month earlier than everyone else. A lot of farmers just go on the fact that last year the rain started in August. No one wanted to get going because they thought there was a good chance it would rain in August. Doug knew it wasn't going to, but other people weren't interested, they were just hoping it would rain. I just found it was strange that people preferred to hope.'

The Lees have a large dam on the property that they use as a wildlife area and habitat for native fish, birds and plants. When climate forecasts indicate a dry year, the bores are left running continuously for several months to keep the dam full and make sure the habitat isn't damaged. This year the indications have been for rain in November, so the bores haven't been turned on.

Doug began using climate as a management tool about three years ago, not long after his property was opened up to irrigation. He went to a climatology workshop with Roger Stone of the QLD Centre for Climate Applications and started to learn about the SOI. Doug had been looking at the Long Paddock web site (developed by the Department of Primary Industries in QLD) but not understanding it.

Local extension officer Bill Webb invited Doug to a workshop for the development of Rainmain software. Doug was keen to get involved.

'They said we want people to take this home, try it out, give us your feedback. We want you to use it for 12 months and we'll check on you every three months. So I kept on writing down what I was using it for and what I was thinking about it.

'We suddenly realised that we were using it more and I was looking for answers in it. With the help of our extension officer I was starting to understand more and more.

'The last climate workshop had about 50 people. It was just through us being a little bit correct and being able to say to people it's going to rain in a couple of days time, the weather map says so. And farmers would say "Can you read that?"

'Those 50 people are out there talking to other farmers and lots more are starting to get interested. It's taking off in this town.'

As an irrigation coordinator, Doug has the job of coordinating water orders for his own property and ten neighbours, interpreting weather information for the next four days and putting the final order through to the dam. Understanding weather charts is vital to this operation, particularly predicting wind and rain, which will influence the amount of water needed for irrigation. Doug hopes to start using longer-term climate information in the Kelsey Creek Water Board as well as the four day weather outlook.

'If we can predict how wet the year's going to be it would be very handy in the Water Board situation because we'd know whether we're going to lease water and how much water's going to be used in the system' he said.

Doug's advice to farmers interested in climate: 'Get to a weather workshop to get some skills and understanding, then get a computer and get on the Internet. It's cheap and vital for weather forecasting and you can get information from many different sources.

'I believe our local news has an over optimistic view of the weather. The information that we want is sometimes in conflict with the local tourist industry and cyclone warnings could come out earlier.

'Be sure that what you're getting is accurate!'