Farmers high and dry as rain stays away

There’s not much more than a big puddle in Richard Johnston’s three dams so the Rosevale farmer was glad to see some rain in recent weeks.

June rainfall totals were below the average for most of the West, King Island and Flinders Island while there was above average rainfall in parts of the Northern Midlands, Break O-Day and Glamorgan Spring Bay areas.   

However, the two or three showers of around 30mm each in the past month came too late for feed growth on the Johnston’s farm, which spans 1150ha from Highbrae at Selbourne to Oakley at Rosevale to the west of Launceston.

Water barely covers the base of the dams that they rely on for irrigation.

Mr Johnston said the past 18 months were the toughest he’s experienced in a lifetime of farming.

“With two failed autumns with no real growth, and the only rain that came, 200mm in November, okay for correcting the grass issue but ruining all of our crops,” he said.

“The dams were full late last year, but the amount of irrigating we’ve had to do since has drained our reserves.”

Mr Johnston said he’s worked hard and invested a lot of money over the years to drought-proof the property, with one 470 megalitre dam on the western side of Ecclestone Road flowing into a second 220 megalitre dam and then he recently built another 550 megalitre dam on the eastern side of Ecclestone Road to service that part of the property with two more pivots.

“We’re continuing to expand the irrigation system so I’m looking forward to eventually having some water in storage,” he said. 

The Johnston’s need the water for their seed potatoes, carrot seed, peas, poppies, beans, grass seed and to grow fodder for prime lambs.

Some of their flock of 4000 ewes have lambed early to fit in with the crop program and then spring lambs will further spread the load.

June rainfall totals back up what Mr Johnston is seeing with June rainfall totals between 25 to 100mm recorded across the northern coast, Flinders Island and most of the East. 

The Bureau is not predicting any great dump in coming months with the forecast for July to September predicting slightly increased chance (60 to 70 per cent chance) of below average rain for parts of the North-West.