Rain outlook for grain growers after storm damage
Victoria and southern NSW are set for a wet start to November as farmers in the west of the state clean up last week’s storm damage.
Grain growers across parts of Victoria’s Mallee and Wimmera regions are counting the cost of storm damage after hail and strong wind tore through their crops last week.
When hail hit James O’Day’s property in north west Victoria last Thursday he was just three weeks out from harvest.
The storm, which lasted about 20 minutes, decimated several thousand acres of peas, barley and wheat on his 6879-hectare farm, he said.
Although he was insured, losing 12 months’ worth of work was “not a nice thing to see”.
The storm, which hit Victorian crops on Thursday and Friday, caused the heaviest damage in the west and southwest of the state.
Farmers in the west Wimmera and South Australian Mallee reported isolated hail, but Westech agronomist Fred Stephan said the damage he had seen as of Monday wasn’t widespread in the Kaniva area.
At Bordertown in South Australia, agronomist Claire Moore from DM Rural said she had seen some light damage, but because crops were still green they had escaped the worst of the impact.
”(The crops are) not super brittle. So instead of losing whole heads, we have only lost a couple grains,” she said.
Ms Moore was yet to see a farm in the area that had lost more than 10 per cent of its crop, she said.
A spokeswoman for Agriculture Victoria said across the state the storm had damaged cereal crops, cut access to farms due to fallen trees and led to power outages which were creating challenges for dairy farm businesses.
The department “has been working with producers, industry and emergency response agencies to assess agricultural impacts from the recent storm event and identify urgent needs”, she said.
Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Jackson Browne said more rain was on the way this week, with a front approaching from the west on Wednesday.
Victoria and southern NSW could expect up to 25mm of rain through to Thursday, with up to 40mm possible on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, he said.
The front was expected to stick around for a while bringing “increased likelihood” of rainfall over the next fortnight, he said.
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