IT WAS looking to be a bumper harvest for the wheat farmers of northern NSW.
Last week Gunnedah wheat farmer Bart Brady had a healthy crop of top-grade durum wheat, which he expected to sell for $475 per tonne.
He was five hours into harvesting it when the rain came - 110 millimetres in total.
''We probably got 130 tonnes harvested, and we had another 900 tonnes to go,'' he said. ''It's cattle feed now.''
Mr Brady, who has been on his farm for eight years, said he would be lucky to get $175 per tonne for the drenched crop now, estimating a loss of about $200,000.
''The rain takes all the weight out of the crops,'' the 46-year-old said. ''So if you imagine having a bucket of marbles, it has now become a bucket of marshmallows. It's no good.''
If the rain had fallen just two weeks earlier, his wheat crops would have still been slightly green and would not have been so damaged.
''We would've been right if the rain fell when the wheat wasn't quite ripe,'' he said.
''But you just have to battle on and go with what you've got, the timing, it's all part of the game.''
But the pain may not be over as the region braces for more rain tomorrow and Thursday.
The NSW Flood Warnings Centre manager at the Bureau of Meteorology, Gordon McKay, said between 20 and 30 millimetres of rain was expected over the 48-hour period, with catchments already at bursting point.
''Those floodwaters which affect Moree will cause moderate to major flooding downstream in the rural areas,'' Mr McKay said.
The bureau was also watching the river peak travelling from Gunnedah towards Wee Waa which is expected to arrive in the flood-affected area later this week. It meant the 1800 Wee Waa residents isolated on their properties would remain stranded for several more days.
The State Emergency Service is focusing its attention on Moree and Wee Waa. Last night evacuation orders for Moree were still in place.
Meanwhile sections of the Newell, Carnavon, Gwydir and Kamilaroi highways remain closed. A three-year-old boy who drowned in a stormwater drain in Bingara, west of Inverell, on Saturday is the only reported death in the floods.
