Michelle Brady
MALLEE farmers have been dealt another blow as a massive hail storm ripped through parts of the region causing widespread damage to crops.
The storm, which has been described as a “mini tornado”, hit parts of the Buloke and Yarriambiack shires and the Mildura council area about 5pm Saturday.
Gale-force winds, large jagged hail and heavy rain flattened crops within minutes, uprooted trees and left a trail of destruction.
Farmers are still counting the cost of the weekend’s storm as waterlogged paddocks prevent insurance assessors from accessing properties, with the real extent of the damage yet to be determined.
Farms north-west of Ouyen through to Woomelang were hit.
Fourth-generation Tempy farmer Jayde Shean said he’d never seen a year like this.
“There’s no such thing as an average year anymore,” he said.
“Every week there’s a new band of rain coming through.
“We’ve never had this amount of rain in the lead-up to harvest.”
Mr Shean wasn’t home when the storm hit but was told of the damage by a neighbour.
He returned home to find smashed windows on his tractor and shearing shed and rows of his barley crop flattened.
His neighbour recorded 38mm of rain during the downpour.
“We’ve had a look around and we’ve got 100 per cent damage on possibly 1000 acres of barley,” Mr Shean said.
“That’s just what we’ve looked at, our neighbour is the same.”
Mr Shean said Saturday’s storm added to a stressful start to this year’s harvest.
“It’s frustrating and just something else we have to deal with,” he said, acknowledging he was one of the lucky ones to be insured for hail damage.
“It’s bad, but it’s not the end of the world if you’ve got insurance.”
Mr Shean said farmers desperately needed a break in the weather to dry out paddocks so they could start harvest and salvage declining crops.
“Access to grain is nearly impossible,” Mr Shean said.
“We’re going to need a month of good weather to dry the paddocks out.”
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‘Worst two months’, says farmer
SPEED farmer Phil Down experienced significant crop damage during Saturday’s freak storm, hitting crop quality and quantity.
“Everything has been affected, 100 per cent,” he said.
However, the extent of the damage varied between 30 and 100 per cent, with some crops unable to be harvested.
While this year’s harvest was shaping up as perfect, Mr Down said he couldn’t believe how quickly the season turned as a result of the weather.
“It went from being the best season ever, up until September, to being the worst two months of my professional farming life, as far as the decline with everything,” Mr Down said.
He said the rain had left a logistical nightmare for farmers who were eager to start harvest but were unable to access wet paddocks.
“It’s been quite an incredible time,” he said.
Mr Down said his farm had been hit by hail on November 1 and he was awaiting assessors to determine the overall loss to his crop.
“We have this one to deal with on top of that now,” he said.
Mr Down was caught in Saturday’s storm while driving home and had to pull off the road and shield himself as large hail pelted his car.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
“The hail was jagged and sharp and it was slicing things, as you can see with the crops.
“There were heaps of trees on the road, windows were smashed, silos were blown over, crops were destroyed.”
