Council News | The Advertiser - Cessnock

Farmers across south-eastern Australia are waiting to get back into the paddock and assess the damage following a heavy rain event just as harvest hit full swing. Some of the Australia's best crops this season, through regions such as the Tatiara in South Australia and Victoria's Wimmera were hit by last week's deluge, which saw widespread falls of 50-80mm and isolated tallies as high as 140mm in Naracoorte town centre. Falls were less last week through other regions busy harvesting such as the Mallee and South Australia's Mid North and Yorke Peninsula, generally between 20-40mm, however the relief was short lived, with up to 40mm of rain over parts of the YP and Mid North and up to 20mm through the Millewa region in far north-western Victoria on Tuesday. Further falls are expected today, with the majority expected to push into non-grain producing regions such as Gippsland, however storm cells could deliver a further unwanted surprise to croppers over the next couple of days. At present there is some optimism among the farming community that dry weather preceding the rain, followed by reasonable drying conditions, could limit quality downgrades, however the scale of the unharvested area hit by heavy rainfall means there could be a national significant erosion of crop quality. Spreads for high protein wheat, already opening up on the back of lower than average protein in harvested crops, are starting to open up, with the market set to closely monitor grain quality when headers start rolling once again. Josh Kay, Nutrien Naracoorte, said rain had been heaviest in the town centre, but added there had been widespread heavy falls over the south-east of South Australia that would significantly delay harvest. Further north Jonno Hicks,'Hannaton', Kaniva, in the west Wimmera, said there had been rain of around 100mm over his property. He said all eyes were now on the current system building. "If we manage to dodge it we could be going later this week, if we do get another storm the clock will reset, which would be a bit frustrating." Mr Hicks said the team had managed to get canola off at Hannaton prior to the rain and would look to switch to cereals once it was dry enough. "It was good to get the canola off as the yields have been excellent, especially since we had such a dry spring, they managed to get up and going early and could push down into stored moisture." He said he was hopeful there would not be major downgrades on the quality front. "It is amazing how quickly the ground has dried out, the water has got away but for the table drains and a couple of crab holes really quickly just because it was so dry." "The weather has also not been massively humid, we would've preferred a bit more of a breeze but it wasn't disastrous." Sparke Agricultural and Associates agronomist and consultant Matthew Sparke, Horsham, said he believed there would be hail damage and some damage to lentils. "Other than that we may have dodged a bullet because it's relatively early on," he said. "A lot of our lentils we hadn't desiccated, some guys had gotten lentils and barley off, it's just watching that barley hasn't germinated and they have good quality seed put away for next year. "They're back out on headers because the soils have just sucked it up." He said he was most concerned about the stop-start nature of the harvest, and hoped further rain - expected this week - would fail to further affect farmers' harvesting programs. Minyip farmer and VFF grains council vice-president Ryan Milgate said he returned to harvesting his canola today after receiving 18.5mm of rain on Friday. He said the heavier rain in other areas would cause "all sorts of issues" for farmers, from quality loss to traffic ability, and summer weeds growing through the moisture. "I think we were very lucky [at Minyip], most places had about 24 to 80mm so obviously the last thing we wanted, the forecast we have in front of us for more rain this week is not great for anyone at the moment," he said. "This is a bit of a bugger because the regions, west of Horsham, had 60 to 100mm and that will have quality impacts now." He said each farmer he had spoken to this season, before the rain, had above-average expectations for harvest. "It will put a dampener on what was otherwise looking like a handy year," Mr Milgate said. "Everyone was very pleasantly surprised with yields and quality but when you put significant amount of rain on it, it takes the fun right out of it."

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