{"id":107963,"date":"2025-08-31T03:16:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T03:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107963\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T03:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T03:16:22","slug":"rain-softens-drought-pain-in-victoria-but-the-effects-linger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/107963\/","title":{"rendered":"Rain softens drought pain in Victoria but the effects linger"},"content":{"rendered":"

The effects of drought linger, but the season has taken a turn for the better in western Victoria.<\/p>\n

Three months ago, ABC Rural visited farmers<\/a> battling a crippling drought and holding out for rain.<\/p>\n

Just days later, a decent rain \u2014 the first for the year \u2014 finally arrived on the King’s Birthday long weekend.<\/p>\n

At long last, barren paddocks started to turn green, and more rain has fallen in the months since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The season now sits in the balance; the landscape is green, but a kind spring is needed, bringing plenty of rain and mild temperatures.<\/p>\n

‘Things were pretty bleak’<\/p>\n

It was a much happier Clayton Caldow welcoming the ABC to his farm this past week.<\/p>\n

When the ABC last visited, the drought situation was “real bad” and he was flat out feeding sheep.<\/p>\n

“Both 2024 and 2025 the starts for the year, the old fellas reckon it’s as bad as it’s ever been,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Clayton Caldow says the season has improved, but there is still a long way to go. (ABC Rural: Angus Verley)<\/p>\n

“Since you were here we haven’t had an abundance of rain, but it’s coming along pretty good,” he said as he strode through a crop of oats that were barely visible during the ABC’s previous visit.<\/p>\n

Mr Caldow said the financial, physical and mental strain of handfeeding sheep was finally easing, although he was “still trickling out a few beans” to sheep in paddocks with the poorest feed.<\/p>\n

“The pressure of sheep feeding and writing out a lot of bills for hay and grain has been massive for a lot of people,” he said.<\/p>\n

One silver lining of this drought has been record-high sheep and lamb prices<\/a>, giving farmers some confidence that the endless stream of money spent on feed has been worthwhile.<\/p>\n

“We’re banking on a $200 average this year for our lambs; two years ago it was $130 to $140 average,” Mr Caldow said.<\/p>\n

\"Sheep<\/p>\n

Green grass has replaced hay and grain at Clayton Caldow’s farm. (ABC Rural: Angus Verley)<\/p>\n

‘Plenty of potential’<\/p>\n

In reliable cropping country between Minyip and Rupanyup, it was also a “shocker” first half of the year, and the King’s Birthday break was much later than grain growers had hoped for.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“The first six months were extremely dry and had us wondering,” Coromby farmer Paul Petering said.<\/p>\n

“But June and July we’ve had average rainfall, so things have turned around and look a bit more promising now.”<\/p>\n

A “false break”, or not enough rain to cause complete crop germination, came on Anzac Day.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Crops got off to a late start at Paul Petering’s farm. (ABC Rural: Angus Verley)<\/p>\n

“That germinated some stuff, but the rest never germinated until the rains came in the second week of June,” Mr Petering said.<\/p>\n

“That will make it complicated if we’re wanting to cut hay, because you don’t want the grain starting to form in the head when you’re pressing hay.<\/p>\n

“But we’re still in the game. We’ve got a good crop base, there’s a little bit of stored moisture, but we’re certainly going to need a spring to get us home.”Why this drought is different<\/a><\/p>\n

Victorian Country Hour host Warwick Long reflects on how farmers focus on mental health, modern farming practices and climate change preparation.<\/p>\n

There is no such thing as an ideal world in farming, but if there was, Mr Petering knows how he would script it.<\/p>\n

“It’d be lovely to get 40 millimetres for August and another 40mm for September and a little bit at the start of October, and then all being well, it could just shut off,” he said.<\/p>\n

Positive outlook<\/p>\n

Farmers hoping for a kind spring will take confidence from the Bureau of Meteorology’s latest long-term outlook, released last week.<\/p>\n

Senior forecaster Jonathan How said while just a forecast, there was plenty of cause for optimism.<\/p>\n

“We are expecting above-average rainfall for pretty much the entire state, with the odds of having above-average rainfall the highest across western parts of Victoria, and less so across eastern parts,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Map<\/p>\n

The Bureau of Meteorology expects above-average rainfall for large parts of eastern Australia in spring.\u00a0 (Supplied: BOM)<\/p>\n

“What we are seeing in not just the Australian model, but also the other international models, is that we are looking at conditions conducive to above-average rainfall.”<\/p>\n

Mr How said while most models rated the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation climate driver as neutral, they predicted a negative Indian Ocean Dipole.<\/p>\n

“That can push more rain across central Australia and into northern and western parts of the state,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The effects of drought linger, but the season has taken a turn for the better in western Victoria.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,6884,4358,77404,75,20666,77403,77405,128,161,25656,13739,77406],"class_list":["post-107963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bureau-of-meteorology","tag-drought","tag-edenhope","tag-environment","tag-farmers","tag-grain","tag-murtoa","tag-science","tag-season","tag-sheep","tag-weather-forecast","tag-will-it-be-a-wet-spring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}