Forecast promising

A‘promising’ season for Mallee farmers has organisers of the 41st annual Mallee Machinery Field Days hopeful of a significant turn-out for this year’s event.

Regional and interstate visitors will converge on the Field Days’ iconic circular design at Speed for a range of agricultural exhibits and information on July 31 and August 1.

Field Days president Terry Kiley said a good season so far had likely provided people more time to manage their crops, and therefore more time to visit the two-day event.

“We expect fairly good attendance this year with the way the season has been developing in central and southern Mallee,” he said

“It’s been one of the better years. We’ve had quite a few good days to do spraying and spreading.”

Victorian Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Richard Carlyon said southern Mallee had experienced

10 to 25-millimetres of rain, based on data up to July 17, in what had been a ‘reasonable winter so far’.

“This puts the Mallee slightly above average for rain this time of the month,” he said.

“The trend is still for slightly dry conditions for the next few months. It was a very dry start to the year. But the Mallee is on track or slightly above average at the moment.”

Field Days secretary Andrew Mclean said both good and bad weather outlooks had an impact on visiting numbers.

“If the weather is too good people will be too busy spraying, but if the weather is poor then it is too wet,” he said.

Rain, hail or shine, however, Speed Lions Club has never had to cancel an event.

Mr Mclean said he hoped attendance numbers would stay consistent with previous years.

On average, about 8000 people attend the two-day event.