Wet weather in Canberra come as a welcome relief for farmers

ABC NEWS (Australia)

While residents in northern NSW grapple with flooding, in the Canberra region the wet weather has come as a welcome relief for farmers who've been bracing for a difficult and dry winter. Parts of the region received as much as 110 millimetres this week.

Transcript

00:00It's the rain farmers have been waiting for, for months.

00:06Hey, come on girls, come on down!

00:11We've had about 35 mils of rain, which is excellent.

00:15That'll mean that we actually have some moisture in the soil.

00:19It's the most farmers in the region have seen all autumn.

00:23That's been enough to actually saturate the top 75 mils of the soil profile

00:28and the plants will now be very happy.

00:30But there's nothing sitting beneath that because the weather has just been so dry.

00:34So we desperately need more rain in order to maintain this going forward.

00:38Three days of rain this week doesn't mean farmers can rest easy.

00:42We've been feeding our cows now for nearly two months

00:45and we'll need to continue to feed them throughout winter.

00:49So each one of these is about $200.

00:52So you're putting five of these out every two days,

00:54so you've got $1,000 every two days, seven days a week,

00:5831 days a month, whatever, as long as it takes.

01:05Down the road the Cosgroves are pleased, the ground is soft.

01:09The pressure's off our shoulders a little bit,

01:11that we don't have to cart water,

01:13we don't have to check to make sure there's nothing stuck in the dam.

01:16They recorded 36 millimetres of rain this week.

01:20It means their hay paddocks should be ready for sheep to graze in a month.

01:24We're sown a month ago, it was only just out of the ground,

01:27and now it's grown.

01:29It's probably grown about 20 mill in the last couple of days.

01:33They too know one rain event won't solve all problems.

01:37Winter temperatures mean plant growth slows.

01:40Instead of it being completely brown,

01:43it's a green tinge now, so we call it a green drought.

01:47Though this week's downpour will do little to make this grass grow,

01:52farmers say the mere sight of rain has an immeasurable effect

01:56on a farming community that has been praying for rain.

01:59If you go outside and things are green and things are happy,

02:02then it's much more uplifting than going outside and everything's dry and hard

02:06and everything's unhappy.

02:08For a dry region, any rain is welcome.

02:17Even if you go outside or anything you think of.

02:20There's a lot of rain, and it's the same thing as a big one.

02:23It's the same thing as rain is coming out so it's dry.

02:26It's up to you, but it's not high enough.

02:27You're gonna be 15 minutes.

02:28You're gonna be a little bitass.

02:29You are gonna lose this rain.

02:30You're gonna be a little bitass,

02:31but I'll lose it.

02:32You're gonna be a little bitass.

02:33The weather is going to be a little bitass.

02:36You're gonna be a little bitass.

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