Hay threatened as dry trend continues
There was some welcome rain throughout the district last week but the hay season for farmers is not looking too promising unless there are some consistent heavy falls – and soon.
October, traditionally Warragul’s wettest month, continued the drier than normal pattern for the year.
The 38.8 millimetres, of which almost threequarters was recorded over a seven-day stretch from October 16 to 22, was down considerably on the 105.3 millimetres average for the month over the past 115 years.
The year’s total for the first 10 months has reached only 659.1 millimetres.
That’s 180 millimetres – or more than seven inches in the imperial scale – below the average.
The patchy rain might have helped the lawns come to life and the spring flowers and the backyard vegetable gardens spark up a bit but on the farms time is running out for solid, beneficial rain.
Hay and silage contractor Duncan McNeil of Warragul said reports he’s received from district farmers were that the rain last week had been patchy.
Some said they’d got near 30 millimetres, others reported 14 to 15, he said.
In Warragul 30 millimetres were registered with most of the total – 22 millimetres – falling on Tuesday and Tuesday night.
Mr McNeil said the silage season so far had been generally “pretty poor”.
And he said things were not looking good for the hay harvest unless there were some solid rains in the next three or four weeks.
There may be some reasonable hay cuts on the flats, Mr McNeil said, but without some good rainfalls the prospects weren’t bright for farms in the undulating and hilly red soil areas.