Farmers across parts of the state looked to the sky in relief earlier this week, as the heavens opened, providing much-needed moisture to struggling crops.
While the rainfall was inconsistent, parts of the Central West, Riverina, Southwest Slopes and the Central and Southern Tablelands had more than 20 millimetres fall across Sunday and Monday.
Further west, Wilcannia recorded 15mm on Monday, a similar amount to the total the town had received since the beginning of May.
AGnVET Services field market agronomist James O’Connor, servicing the Lake Cargelligo and Ungarie areas, said his clients had received between 20-35mm, and the timing was ideal as crops in the ground were struggling with the dry conditions.
“The canola was stressed, and has started to flower over the past 24 hours.”
“Wheat and barley is first node, pushing second node in a few weeks,” he said.
“Some of the earlier sown crops were holding on better, but in the last one or two weeks we were really starting to see some moisture stress throughout, with barely any sub-soil moisture left. The situation was becoming pretty dire.”
Mr O’Connor said that preparations had begun to ready crops for a further predicted downpour tomorrow.
“Blokes are out spreading urea on the cereals and the canola in preparation. We will see a few late herbicide applications as well.”
Lachlan Fertilisers Rural agronomist Baden Dickson, Cowra, said that paddocks in his area also copped about the 20mm mark.
“The crops were holding on. We had pretty minimal moisture in the top profile, so it came at a real tipping point for the season.
“With further rain forecast for Thursday (today), people will be more confident of still getting a decent yield,” said Mr Dickson.
Damien Doyle, "Wistaton", Euabalong, said that prior to the downpour he'd been considering what crops to turn sheep onto first.
"It's really saved our bacon," he said.
Mr Doyle has about 130 hectares of chickpeas in the ground that have picked up in the last couple of days with the help of the rain.
"The relentless frosts have slowed things down," he said, "it just dries things out and slows everything down."
Wayne Hughes, “Riverview,” Gooloogong, said he had also struggled with frost exacerbating moisture problems on the ground for his young lucerne and wheat crops.
“With the frost, without rain, the crop would have started to go backwards very quickly.”
A further 15-25mm is forecast to fall across parts of the Central and Southern Tablelands, Northwest Slopes and Plains, the Hunter and the Central West tomorrow.
