Farmers worry as summer’s ‘long ‘dry’ stretches into autumn
An early, but dusty, planting at Rand in the NSW Riverina. Photo: Instagram/sundance1967
Farmers across Victoria and southern NSW have their gaze fixed on the sky, searching for any sign of a break in the long, dry summer that has now stretched well into autumn.
Rain in southern Australia all but disappeared in the first three months of 2018, leaving farmers to ponder what the future might bring.
While parts of northern Australia, particularly Queensland, were soaked by record-breaking rainfalls, thanks to a tropical low and then Cyclone Iris, NSW recorded its driest first-quarter of the year since 1986.
The Bureau of Meteorology said parts of north-western Victoria and some central and western parts of NSW had less than 25 millimetres of rain between January and March.
More warm, dry weather is forecast across south-eastern Australia for the next week – meaning no immediate relief is in sight.
#VIC will see persistent warm weather building from Sunday pushing through to mid next week. Stay up-to-date with all forecasts & warnings https://t.co/OUXf1pdVhR pic.twitter.com/9ZX5VactqN
— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) April 6, 2018
Victorian Farmers Federation vice-president Brett Hosking, who grows crops at Quambatook, near Swan Hill, said his area had been dry since November.
“That’s summer, so we expect it to be hot and dry,” he said. “But we often get summer storms that are quite significant rainfall events. We might get one or two or three every summer … [but] we haven’t had a double-figure rainfall event at our place in 2018.”
Mr Hosking said farmers had about four weeks to see a change in the weather before they would need to revise autumn planting and stock levels.
“We’re not at that point yet,” he said. “But we’d love to see that change come.”
He noted it was also dry north of the Murray, with Riverina farmers particularly affected.
“They’d love to see rain as soon as possible, to get good winter food growing,” he said. “At this time of year, it’s not urgent. But as the season progresses … growers will need to make decisions accordingly.”
Mid-May will be crunch-time for autumn and winter planning.
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Further south, in Gippsland, Emma Germano – president of the VFF’s horticulture group – farms horticulture crops and livestock. In an area that normally has comparatively high rainfall, she is already irrigating.
“We didn’t have a really, really hot summer,” she said. “It’s just been really dry and dusty.”
Some growers might be able to take solace, however, from BOM’s most recent three-monthly outlook. Issued in late March, it predicts a wetter than average April-June for eastern Victoria and south-eastern NSW. Elsewhere, the prediction is for equal chances of a wetter or drier than average three months.
As Mr Hosking put it: “What we need now is for autumn to do its thing.”
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