Dairy farmers in south-east Australia were preparing for a forecast El Niño, when it began to rain. Then it continued to rain — a lot.
In early October, floods peaked over six metres throughout Wellington and East Gippsland shires, in south-east Victoria.
Now, dams and creeks and soil profiles are full.
But farmers had to deal with two floods in late spring, some had to dump milk, milk production in the peak seasonal period dropped off, silage harvest is on hold, and they are trying to manage their grazing rotations knowing they will be undertaking unexpected and large scale pasture renovation in readiness for autumn.
Moderate (3m) to major (7m) flooding occurred across Victoria’s Wellington and East Gippsland shires and into the Bega Valley, NSW, in October and November, in two major rain events.
The floods in November were compounded by occurring in already sodden catchments.
Dairy farmers and others are facing summer with full soil profiles, but the need to resow paddocks and repair laneways in the wake of floods that lay for extended periods on their country.
After rain for a week, on December 1 a major flood warning of 7m was issued for along the Avon River, upstream and downstream at Stratford.
Sandbags are being stored at Newry, and for two months the small population has been regularly sandbagging key assets.
Raelene Hanratty, at Upper Maffra West, said the major problem in the second flood in the Macalister Irrigation District was the ground was already sodden.
“Water came out of the river and travelled and travelled,” she said.
“Water has travelled into different places than any previous flood because the ground is sodden.
“There’s also a community view that the water is leaving the river in different breach points to its traditional route.”
Raelene said laser grading and other works had reduced levy banks and flattened the land and taken out undulations.
Raelene and husband Dennis are still on undulating country.
Because of pipeline construction work, Raelene and Dennis didn’t irrigate as they normally would on August 15, when the irrigation season opened.
“We weren’t able to irrigate until the end of August,” Raelene said.
“Things were very dry around here.
“We were down 100mm of rainfall for the season.
“So the first lot of rain, 150mm, was very welcome.
“It didn’t necessarily change our management; they were still predicting El Niño.
“The second event will get us through December and into next year [2024] without irrigating.
“And on December 15, Southern Rural Water made their readjustment. The weir is full.
“So we’ll get our high reliability irrigation entitlement for the rest of the season.
“There should also be some fairly good allocations of low reliability water shares, going forward.”
Dennis had made some hay, but their plans for harvesting silage at Newry have been shelved.
“We haven’t been able to get on to that paddock. So that will impact the amount of fodder we have for winter,” Raelene said.
“We may have to buy hay in, which is better than having an El Niño and buying in grain and fodder.”
In the Macalister Irrigation District, in Wellington Shire, local flood warden Neil Gannon, a dairy farmer at Tinamba, was incensed at the way warnings were issued.
“There was no thought about safety,” he said.
“At 3am an emergency alert was sent out advising people to leave their homes immediately.
“It was absolutely ridiculous, sending people out onto flooded roads in the dark.
“It’s the type of messaging that puts everyone into heightened panic and danger.”
“It was unbelievable,” Raelene said.
“No-one in their right mind should be driving to get out of flood waters at that time of the morning.”
She noted, for herself, that the Victorian Emergency Services app for smart phones was not updating regularly.
“When the alert came out early in the morning, it was too late for people to safely evacuate,” Raelene said.
Neil Gannon’s farm was impacted by water out of Glenmaggie Weir, for the second time in a month.
“But I think it was released well this second time,” Neil said.
“In the first flood, about 80 per cent of the dairy farm was covered. A few fences and tracks were damaged and there was rubbish along the fences.”
Neil had to dump 20,000 litres of milk in the first flood, because roads were closed to tanker access.
“In the second flood, the amount of country that was covered in water was reduced to 65-70 per cent. We lifted a few fences so we didn’t have any damage.
“Most of the rubbish from neighbours’ properties was washed away in the first flood. Just a few sticks were caught in the fences this time.”
It is a turnaround in the season for Neil and his neighbours. Neil began irrigating on August 15, the day the irrigation season opened.
“When we got the first flood, we were looking dry but the country was still in good condition,” he said.
“Now we won’t be irrigating until the new year.
“The water authorities have called the spill, so we’re also guaranteed our full high reliability water shares for this irrigation season.”
He had made some silage between the two floods, and is waiting for the land to recover so he can get on it with heavy machinery and make hay.
Going forward, Neil needs to repair laneways and is keen to see the herd improve production and recover from sore feet.
“We lost production in the second flood. It dropped from 12,500 litres/day down to 10,500 litres/day,” he said.
“Now the sun needs to shine and the grass needs to fire up.”
At Bruthen, Peter Jennings described a moderate flood level that created a lake covering 111 hectares of his prime grazing land and didn’t recede until December 10.
In November he received 20 centimetres from a week of rain. Also for him, that was the second event.
“Thank goodness for our hill country. The rain kickstarted our kikuyu and we were able to feed out hay,” he said.
“All the flat was covered except for 10 acres.
“I would call this one a moderate flood. It was also a clean flood, because it was fine rain that fell over a week.
“The paddocks are still very muddy and will have to be resown with annual rye-grass in the autumn.
“The lake only drained away yesterday.
“We had the cows on the old river bank today, which I’m very happy about,” he said on December 11.
“The best thing is, the hills are lovely after all that rain.”
Prior to the October rain, Peter had taken on board the Bureau of Meteorology’s forecast for an El Niño, and had renovated some swamp country, discing, rolling and sowing it to pasture.
That went underwater and drowned.
In autumn he will have to resow that country, subject to what happens between now and then. He will have to resow annual rye-grass into a lot of his country.
“Where the rye-grass is coming through the mud, of course it’s sticky,” Peter said.
But after harvesting barley silage before the October flood, he resowed with millet. After being drowned in November, that is now up and growing, and shiny.
“The millet went under water, but now it’s bright green and has bounced back,” Peter said.
The change of diet for the milking herd saw a drop of fat and protein in the vat, and lower production.
“I put that down to the kikuyu and the hay,” Peter said.
“We’ve also got the milk up to 500 litres on what we lost, today.”
Twelve months ago, Dennis Reynolds, of Jarrahmond, and his neighbours were also dealing with floods in the Orbost district.
This year is partly a repeat of those circumstances.
“This season was a little dry,” Dennis said.
“We had 220mm in total, with 140mm falling over four days.
“Our hill country and higher flats were dry and now they’re looking great.
“The lower flats are buggered. There is a lot of country that people are not going to get cattle on until after Christmas.
“We’ve lost pasture, we just don’t know how many acres, yet.”
He has laneway damage to repair initially, and is pleased his milking herd hasn’t shown any health issues yet.
For Clinton Leahy, a number of hot and windy days had dried out his country, and three out-of-control bushfires were within 10km of his farm at Coolagolite, near Cobargo in NSW.
“Towards the end of November we started to get a break in the season we desperately needed,” Clinton said.
“Across the two weeks we would’ve had about 250mm of rain.
“Some areas in the Bega Valley got more than 400mm of rain.”
Clinton said the rain had made a massive turnaround in the season for him.
He had run out of dry feed and water supplies were very low.
“We really hadn’t had any decent rain since April 2023,” he said.
“One of the three out-of-control fires burned over 17,000 acres of national park and forestry and was only five minutes from here.
“If the wind had changed direction, we would’ve been burnt out.
“Now we have paddocks of lush feed and full dams.”
Narira Creek, which borders his property, peaked on November 29 and flooded surrounding country.
“In the 10 years of owning this farm, I’ve never seen it rise so fast and as high as it did,” Clinton said.
“Boundary fencing that was previously untouched in prior floods went under water this time.
“Fencing bordering the creek was affected by debris and flattened to the ground with the force of the water.”
Clinton has about one kilometre of fencing to replace.
“I’m very grateful for the turnaround in the season,” he said.
“I won’t have to keep buying house water for my young family, and I’ll save money now not having to keep hand feeding livestock.
“Seeing the cattle bounce back, reminds me of the genetic potential in them, and that’s very satisfying.”
Phil Ryan, at Toothdale, also in the Bega Valley, had experienced the lowest rainfall in more than a century, prior to the rain.
“At Candelo Post Office weather station, which is about six kilometres from my farm, the rainfall was 279mm for the 12 months to November 15,” Phil said.
“It’s the lowest rainfall recorded since 1900, and 481mm below our median rainfall.
“The season was desperately dry. I had 10 dry dams and had been feeding my stock on silage and grain since June.
“I had five pits of conserved silage on my farm, and I’d fed out four of them.”
Phil’s farm received just over 200mm in 36 hours at the end of November, with up to 400mm spread across the Bega Valley.
“To December 10, we had 562mm, basically more rain in three weeks than the previous 12 months,” he said.
There were delays in milk collections off dairy farms at Bega and Bodalla.
“About 20,000 litres of milk had to be dumped and we have had an increased incidence of lameness, but it’s still below three per cent of the herd,” Phil said.
“Our cell count is still under 100,000, so I’m pretty happy with that.
“Two days ago the milking herd started getting two green feeds a day for the first time since May.
“I have minor fencing repairs to do, replacing some bottom wires on a few fences, and very minor erosion.
“Other farms, after receiving the 400mm compared to my 200mm, have damage to dam spillways and farms on the river have significant fencing damage.
“Several farms have lost between 10 and 50 per cent of corn crops.”
Bega Cheese publicly acknowledged the drivers of Reeves Transport for their flexibility in ensuring milk collections and the Bega Valley Shire Council for their work getting roads re-opened.