THE recent rains may have been helpful for topping tanks and advancing late maturing cereal crops in the district but the biggest concerns for local farmers now are grass seeds, fungus and a delayed harvest.
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With harvest now well underway in the west ,as windrowing machinary moves east, farmers who have already cut canola will be looking at the rows hoping they are far enough off the ground to dry away from the moist soil.
Longtime district agronomist Paul Parker said parts of the district had amassed between two and five inches in recent weeks.
“There were scattered falls or varying amounts - I know of one farmer who got two and a half inches in an hour,” he said.
“While this is great for dams, this sort of runoff would have caused erosion issues for some people.
“Certainly the mineralisation of nitrogen may help boost protein levels,” Mr Parker added.
A good dry spell is the order of the day, with dry feed in pastures tending to go off and lots of hay still on the ground waiting to be baled.
“There will be some green pick - and some clover is still hanging on, so the quality is still reasonable,” he said.
“But obviously the more rain we get, the more potential there is for crop damage and, certainly, hay could be lost,” he said.
In terms of stock, the biggest issue producers currently face is grass seeds and now flystrike as the humidity remains high during the annual storm season.
