Variable spring rainfall creates harvest challenge for south-eastern farmers

Southern Victoria emerges from extended drought with above-average spring rainfall while northern regions suffer through tough seasonal conditions, threatening summer crops.

A tale of two springs has emerged for southern and northern Victoria with parts of the southwest coming out of extended dry periods with above average rainfall.

But for northern Victoria and into southern NSW, some centres have had less than 50 per cent of their average spring rainfall, creating challenges for crops, pastures and livestock water heading into summer.

Highly variable rainfall totals meant 59 per cent of the Bureau of Meteorology weather stations monitored by The Weekly Times recorded below-average totals for spring.

The driest areas included Hay, NSW (35mm, 35 per cent) and Deniliquin, (49mm, 41 per cent) in NSW and Swan Hill (47mm, 48 per cent).

Hay had only 3mm and 4.6mm in October and November and Swan Hill and Deniliquin had only 4.4mm and 6.2mm respectively in October.

In stark contrast, Victoria’s wettest sites received above-average rainfall.

The Latrobe Valley had the highest spring rainfall of the sites monitored with 296.8mm or 132 per cent of its average rainfall.

In the southwest, Portland and Warrnambool have experienced two years of drought, but the two centres have recorded 126 and 127 per cent of their average spring rainfall with combined totals for September, October and November of 258.3mm and 248mm.

Stawell had a poor start to the season with only 15mm in April and May before more than 50mm fell in June, July and August and then above average rainfall in spring.

Shane Field, who farms near Marnoo, said the season had turned around from a slow start, but recent rains were now holding up harvest.

“The spring rains have really turned things around,” he said.

“But this last lot of rain has been annoying because everyone has been wanting to windrow and start harvest.

Late season intermittent rain has created a stop-start approach to harvest. Picture: Zoe Phillips

“We don’t normally start harvest this late.”

In central parts of Gippsland, seasonal conditions have flipped from a dry end to autumn and only below average rainfall in winter.

At Sale there was only 3mm recorded in April, but a combined 188.4mm had fallen in October and November.

There has been even more spring rain in the Latrobe Valley — 296.99mm or 132 per cent of its long-term average.

Graeme Anderson’s dairy farm at Denison had received more than 140mm for November to cap off a bumper spring.

“It’s absolutely magnificent,” he said.

“There is a lot of silage being made, but there will be some pretty wet paddocks to get that done.

“But things were as bad as I had ever seen it around here.

“None of the dams on the non-irrigated land had any water in them.

“In July-August we had to shift cattle on our dry land because we had run out of water.

“That was a pretty general occurrence across the district, but now everyone has got plenty.”

South Australian farmer Richard Konzag of Mallala said farmers had initially welcomed the news from the Bureau of Meteorology that it would be a wetter than average spring.

But what they didn’t take into account was that the forecast rain would arrive during harvest.

“We have had 50mm of rain on our hay which is just unfortunately too late,” he said.

“There are crops that would have benefited from this if it had arrived earlier ... but really it was no benefit and for us, it ruined the hay,” he said.

Cooler temperatures have also made harvest in his region challenging and he said November’s daytime temperatures were 3C below average.

“We just can’t get a run at harvest with this weather,” he said.

Mr Konzag has finished harvesting lentils with a result of 1.99 tonnes a hectare. And barley yielded a better than expected result at 4 tonnes a hectare.

“We are about 40 per cent of the way through harvest and are now hoping for some dry weather,” he said after 8mm of rain fell on Friday.

Summer has started on cold note with alpine snow, but temperatures were set to soar into the high 30s in Mildura and the mid 30s at Swan Hill on Thursday and Friday.