Mallee crops in need of rain

Crops in the Mallee are in need of a drenching after receiving scarce rain over the past two months.

WAITING FOR RAIN: Nandaly grower Terry Kiley says last month was “extremely dry”.

MALLEE grain growers are waiting on “saving rain” to help salvage crops in need of a soaking.

Nandaly grower Terry Kiley, who produces wheat, barley, lentils, lupins, oats and vetch, said it had been an “extremely dry” past month.

“We had good opening rain on the first of April,” Mr Kiley said.

“The start of the season was extremely wet and we received an inch and a half (38mm) of rain in April, which is rare so that gave us a lot of confidence.”

But things have since gone downhill.

“We have only had a splattering of rain since,” Mr Kiley said.

“We got about 170mm of rain for the year, which is far from being average.

“We usually get about 320mm of rain.”

For the time being, crops were tracking OK, Mr Kiley said, but they had suffered over the past fortnight.

“We are waiting for rain which is expected over the next week, with weather modules predicting the area will get 20mm to 30mm of rain,” he said.

“That would be saving rain I’d say.”

Barley was the grower’s most affected crop, with a drenching desperately needed.

“Barley is starting to go backwards a bit and it is turning yellow,” Mr Kiley said.

“The crop was sown into wheat stubbles, which had no moisture except for what they have got this year.”

Whereas wheat crops had some moisture to give them a boost.

“Wheat crops were sown into some stored moisture,” he said.

Mr Kiley said in the current stressful time, everyone locally was relying on the rain coming.

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