Rainy start to the year for Western District farmers

Grain growers have had to put harvest on hold after a weekend of wild weather saw warnings for heavy rainfall and flash flooding in parts of Victoria. Here’s where the rain fell.

Flooding in Warrnambool over the weekend. Picture: Greg Carter

GRAIN growers throughout the Western District are watching grey skies with concern as heavy falls of the past few days put the brakes on their wheat harvest and raise fears of downgraded quality.

Headers throughout the south west were forced to pull up after heavy falls hit the west in the afternoon of New Year’s Day.

Many areas ready to harvest what growers hoped to be high-yielding and high quality wheat crops, such as Westmere received 53mm of rain during the past few days.

Bureau of Meteorology rainfall figures show that Cressy received 99mm, Willaura had 90mm and Mount Mercer recorded 51mm in the past seven days.

Warrnambool (62mm), Penshurst (43mm) and Ballarat (42mm) were also hit by the downpour, with warnings for heavy rainfall and flash flooding sent out on Saturday for Mildura, Robinvale, Horsham, Stawell, Hamilton, Colac, Ararat, Warrnambool, Portland and Ballarat.

Flash flood warnings were also issued for Mildura, Horsham, Warrnambool, Bendigo, Maryborough, Ballarat, Geelong and Melbourne over the weekend.

Hamilton grain grower Andrew Nagorcka said his crops were hit by 40mm of rain during the past few days.

“I’m not sure if it has caused any damage yet, I hope not,” he said.

Mr Nagorcka said there was a risk that rain could cause grain heads to shatter or cause sprouting if the damp conditions persisted.

Mr Nagorcka had harvested his “best-ever canola yields” before the rain hit, but had yet to properly start harvesting wheat, which he had expected to yield similar or better than last harvest at around 8t/ha.

Before the rain hit his 45Y93 canola crops yielded three to three-and-a-half tonnes.

“For canola I budget on 2.8t/ha and last year we got about 3t/ha, so it is a 10-20 per cent increase in average yields, which is better than I expected” he said.

MORE

WET START TO 2021 FORECAST

WHERE LOCUSTS HAVE BEEN SIGHTED THIS SUMMER

BALLIANG CROPPING FAMILY’S JOINT HARVEST EFFORT