Victorian harvest threatened by wild weather on the way

Upcoming wild weather looks to upset the plans of many Victorian grain growers in the midst of harvest. Here’s what the forecast warns is on the way.

Andrew Russell, Rutherglen, in a crop of Viking Wheat.

WARM and humid conditions could cause problems this week as farmers scramble to get their crops off before some wild weather.

While Victoria will not get the downpours seen in Queensland and northern NSW, the humidity from that weather is expected to push down, affecting some crops yet to be harvested.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Richard Russell said Victoria was in for an unstable few days of weather with the greatest chance of thunderstorms tomorrow.

There was the potential for storms mainly across northern parts and possibly southwest Victoria today, but even more activity on later in the week.

“We will see warm and humid conditions especially in central and eastern Victoria, with thunderstorms more active on Thursday as the trough deepens,” Mr Russell said.

“The cool change is slow moving and will take some time to push across the state.”

Rutherglen farmer Andrew Russell said he was concerned about the impending weather with 400ha of crop yet to harvested.

“We really have had such a good run. We are so near yet so far away from finishing,” he said.

“We are currently harvesting wheat that is going seven tonnes to the hectare and we have had such a great season so we are thankful for that, but we will certainly lose grain weight with the rain and the triticale will probably start sprouting as it is notorious for doing that.”

Mr Russell said there was little they could do except work as hard as they could before it came.

“We will do what we can, go as hard as we can, then sleep when it rains and keep harvesting when it dries out,” he said.

“Hopefully, we will be finished by Christmas. It’s the holy grail when it comes to finish time and given all that has happened this year, it would be great to be finished by then so we can get together as families.”

Western Ag director Philip Hawker said the weather would bring few concerns for croppers further south.

Most canola had been harvested and wheat crops were still at least a week away from being harvested, he said.

“We are not worried about this weather event at all for the south-west crops,” Mr Hawker said.

“I don’t think the rain event will be that significant and we can even harvest any canola that is not yet done in cool conditions because it is ripe.”

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