There wasn’t a great deal for local farmers to do during the deluge over Easter but you won’t find them complaining.
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According to the Bureau of Meteorology, a total of 31.6mm of rain had been recorded at the local weatherstation, located at the Young Airport, since Friday night.
Yesterday morning’s reading was the highest at 21.2mm, with a further 9.2mm (as at 4pm) falling over the course of the day.
It’s already surpassed last year’s wettest day for April at 17mm (on April 11) and the month’s total - just eight days in - is only 28mm shy of the 2014 total.
But for some farmers spread around the shire, their weekend readings were much higher.
Crop farmer Mick Reynolds of “Toompang”, west of Young on the Milvale Road, recorded a 34mm downpour yesterday morning.
He also had 3.5mm on Saturday.
“It’s a welcomed autumn break,” Mick said.
“It was really dry, this’ll mean we can start thinking about sowing winter crops.
“But it’s not heavy enough to fill the dams, we still need good gully rakers to fill the dams.”
It was a different story for farmers south of Thuddungra, with locals describing the downpours as “extraordinary”.
Jamie Watson of “South. Greenbank” said they recorded about 25mm on Friday and another 25mm yesterday.
“It did wash away some gullies and we had a fair bit of water filling the dams,” he said.
“It is great sowing rain, it is a fantastic start to the season.”
Meanwhile some Maimuru farmers received up to 30mm Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Local agronomist Paul Parker has also welcomed the rain.
He awoke to an 18mm reading at his home in Young’s west yesterday morning, with another 18mm falling over two and a half hours.
He believed the eastern side of town also had heavy falls.
“It’s tremendous, the little bit of rain we had over the weekend has dampened the soil’s surface,” Paul said.
“It’s the steady rain, not too heavy so it’s soaked in and that’s good because it means the next lot of rain doesn’t wash off as bad.”
But Paul said more is still needed to keep farmers going through the winter.
“It’s (this rain) going to start to enter the profile for farmers to start sowing but what we need is follow-up rain to enter the subsoil,” he said.
“We had a dry five month period between July and November last year so crops with tap roots were reaching down into the deeper soil profile and dried it out.”
Paul also said the 18mm he recorded yesterday was more than the total he’d recorded over the previous two months.