With almost a month’s rain in 24 hours, the 60mm deluge left the last of the harvest in tatters, in some cases destroyed.
High-value clover crops were the biggest victim while specialist seed crops were yet to be assessed in the sodden ground.
For cropping farmers Richard Stewart and Joanne Burke the 24-hour deluge had wiped out their bottom line.
“On the back of years of depressed grain prices, like many, we went for seed crops to try and make up some loss – it looked hopeful then we just wanted to finish off to get an average harvest and now this.
“Financially, we have been hit hard with this deluge,” Burke said.
“But we are just one example of a bunch of people out there in the same sodden mess.”
Valetta cropper David Clark was counting his lucky stars that he managed to get his carrot crop in but he still had wheat and barley standing and hundreds and hundreds of tonnes sitting in storage waiting for the dryer.
“It really has been a disappointing harvest, very much dependent on location and small windows of opportunity and the further inland you go with a naturally later harvest the worse it gets.
“We had a complete weather change on February 22 and in the past 42 days we’ve had rain on 30, with the longest spell of no rain being three days – it’s unprecedented really and just heart-wrenching for a cropping farmer,” Clark said.
With specialist vegetable and seed crops worth five times more than a grain crop, the higher-value crops had become a priority.
“We made the call to chase value and thank goodness we did.
“We have also harvested a lot of grain at 20% so there’s a massive drying operation to happen.
“But now we can’t turn a wheel on the place so there’s no green feed planting, ryegrass is way behind and for clover that’s not in, it’s too late now.”
Clark said the knock-on effect of deluge Debbie would in many ways be more costly than the harvest.
