Rain bands that passed through western Victoria last week have proved more of a nuisance than helpful, according to croppers.
Xavier Breen, Looranna, Nurcoung, said the ground was so dry, it just soaked the rain up.
Mr Breen said he received between 22 and 25 millimetres, on Wednesday through to Thursday morning and did not expect any more falls for the next few weeks.
“Six weeks ago, it would have been perfect,” he said. “I’ve just finished windrowing and will start harvesting in the next 10-14 days, depending on how warm it is.”
Sam Eagle, Glenera, Bungalally, said the 25mm of rain on his property, would delay harvest but was unlikely to cause any real damage.
“It’s nuisance value, it fills the tanks up but there is no run off,” he said.
There might be some downgrading of hay, but it would still sell.
“I was going to start harvesting, I was just about ready to pull the harvester out, but I’ll now start from mid to late next week.”
He grows canola, wheat, barley, oaten and vetch hay and faba beans.
Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) vice president David Jochinke, tweeted -“any rain in months starting with N or D is less than ideal for Wimmera croppers, hope it helped farmers somewhere who needed it.”
He said many farmers reported falls of between 15 and 25mm, but said the ground was so dry there would be no run off.
“If only it was our late September drop – in reality it's compounding the hardship,” Mr Jochinke tweeted.
Troy Driscoll, of Driscoll Seeds in Maryborough and St Arnaud said the rain might boost stock feed .
”It won’t do the crops any good, they have dried off and finished their cycle, there may be a bit of water run off, as water supply is a big drama for the livestockers,” Mr Driscoll said.
”It just shows the difference – if it was two or three weeks ago, we would have been looking to an average to above average year.”
Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources’ agronomist Dale Boyd is based at Echuca, where in the week of Saturday November 31 to Friday November 6, 23.4mm of rain was recorded, which he said was “right i the middle of hay production”, would could affect quality.
He said some rain was dumped by localised storm cells, so different locations and even neighbouring farms had variable falls.
“We heard reports of some people receiving 50mm in less than a hour,” he said.
He said a lot of the crops the northern cropping region had been cut for hay, but some in the south-west could have been at the maturity levels to have got some benefit from last week’s falls.
