driest start to the year<\/a> in 2026 after a run of dry seasons.<\/p>\nMr Pendergast, who farmed at Benambra, said it was still looking “pretty tough” at his place until last month.<\/p>\n
“It’s been three years, really, of pretty ordinary conditions,” he said.<\/p>\n
But with some rain in recent weeks and this downpour, Mr Pendergast is happy.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had 65 [millimetres] in the last four days,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s just incredible.<\/p>\n
“It goes from dust to green that quickly with the right conditions.”<\/p>\n
![\"Several](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6ee9561fed49a717bd9ddaf22e1d93ce.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
There were no complaints about the mud at the cattle sales in Omeo. (ABC Rural: Warwick Long)<\/p>\n
Best March rain in a decade<\/p>\n
In the southern Wimmera near Horsham, grain grower Russell Heard said he was thrilled to get a good dump of rain.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had 67mm and [it’s] been very unexpected,” Mr Heard said.<\/p>\n
“Other areas have had more.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/257e560a0139759dbc493f151688cdb0.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Russell Heard tipped 67 millimetres of rain out of his gague. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
He said he had not experienced rainfalls like this a decade.<\/p>\n
“It’s been about 10 years I think since we’ve had a March fall of this number,” Mr Heard said.<\/p>\n
“It’s good moisture to bank in the soil for this coming crop we’re going into in 2026.<\/p>\n
“We’ll have some summer weeds appearing late now \u2026 which will keep us grain growers busy spraying.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/74c7dc64e27c130242a72fdf3c85a5d1.jpeg\")
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Russell Heard says the rain sets up his 2026 season. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
Soggy fruit and almonds<\/p>\n
While the rain has brought relief to many, the timing is challenging for fruit and almond producers.<\/p>\n
Dried fruit growers around Mildura are monitoring their grapes for rot, after 150mm fell in the area.<\/p>\n
“It’s certainly not what we want, not by a long way,” Pomona grower and Dried Fruits Australia chair Mark King said.<\/p>\n
“It will actually split the grapes and once they start to split they’ll go rotten.”<\/p>\n
![\"Metal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/71e4a6572898abad43f8320ff1e4a782.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
The rain around Mildura flooded this grape operation. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
The rain has also halted the almond harvest in the Sunraysia and the Riverland, in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.<\/p>\n
Australian Almond Board chief executive Tim Jackson said the harvest had “barely” started there.<\/p>\n
“Once the excess water has dissipated, the next steps will involve drying out the in-form volumes that have been most affected by the rain,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If the weather clears and there’s no further rainfall, harvesting is expected to resume next week.”<\/p>\n
For fruit growers in northern Victoria, around Cobram, their late-season peach crops could be affected.<\/p>\n
“When you do get rain like this, brown rot can start and you can lose quite a bit of your crop,” Fruit Growers Victoria industry development officer Michael Crisera said.<\/p>\n
“Between 20 and 30 per cent of the crop could drop on the ground.”<\/p>\n
But he said for most growers in the Goulburn Valley and northern Victoria, the rain was welcome.<\/p>\n
“We’re seeing an increase in water prices in the temporary market. We’re paying four times what we were paying compared to last year,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This rain will hopefully buy us a bit of time so we’re not needing to buy water to finish our late-season crops.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dry cattle yards turned to mud as steady rain fell at the Victorian high country sales. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[258921,64,63,258922,258919,99,258918,258920,248927,15157,6876,258923,660,89683],"class_list":{"0":"post-518439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-almond-growers","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-almond-board","12":"tag-autumn-rain","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-dry-spell","15":"tag-fruit-growers","16":"tag-fruit-growers-victoria","17":"tag-rain","18":"tag-rainfall","19":"tag-rot","20":"tag-victoria","21":"tag-water-supply"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518439","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=518439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n