Orchardists and dairy farmers need decent rain to stop Bay drying out

Pongakawa dairy farmer John Scrimgeour says some farmers have been feeling the impact of the dry weather this summer. Photo/file

Orchardists and dairy farmers are looking for a decent drenching to break what is shaping up to be a damaging long dry spell for the Western Bay of Plenty.

Only four days of sustained rain during the past seven weeks had left some dairy farmers on the higher and dryer land of Pongakawa and Otamarakau feeding out silage to keep up milk production.

"Some farmers have been feeding out for a couple of weeks," Pongakawa dairy farmer John Scrimgeour said.

The Bay's free-draining soils meant there was not a lot of capacity to hold moisture. "From that point of view, we are looking for more rain."

With yesterday's light showers barely scratching the surface of what was needed, farmers were left pinning their hopes on Sunday's forecast for rain, possibly heavy. Next week's forecast was for fine or cloudy weather.

Mr Scrimgeour said the constant westerly winds for the past month or two had aggravated the situation. "There are not many mornings where we have got a dew."

While it was not really anything out of the ordinary for a Bay of Plenty summer, he said things would start getting serious if there was no rain for the next couple of weeks.

Bay of Plenty Federated Farmers sharemilkers chairman Russell Mead said the wind had been quite severe all summer, with Otamarakau dried off quite a bit.

"That kind of land goes first."

He said most farmers had been preparing for a bit of a dry summer.

"Most people are pretty well equipped for it...if we don't get a good amount of rain in the next two or three weeks it will start impacting."

The Tauranga chairman of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers, Doug Brown, said the lack of rain would affect the size of fruit.

"Most growers with irrigation will be irrigating madly by now."

However, the benefit of smaller fruit was that they produced a better taste experience, so it was a swings and roundabout situation. Better taste produced higher prices in discerning markets although growers also got more money for bigger fruit.

"A few people are a little nervous. They are looking for the next bout of rain, so long as they don't get damaging winds with it."

The big advantage of dry weather was that it lessened the spread of Psa.

"Psa like damp conditions. With long dry spells we don't see much progression in Psa," Mr Brown said.

Tauranga Rainfall
December: 44.4mm (47% of monthly average)
January including yesterday's showers: 19.6mm (30% of monthly average)
Rain days forecasted to January 28: Sunday January 22nd
Source - MetService