Wednesday, 21 March 2012 10:14

Ten days to drain

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Riverina dairy farmers Neville and Ruth Kydd received more than half their average annual rainfall of 400mm in just five days earlier this month.

The Kydds, who farm at Blighty in southern NSW, copped 97mm in one two-and-a-half hour downpour, another 97mm two days later in a five-hour burst, and 38mm more two days after that.

"We've had six inches (150mm) in a downpour before but nothing [in 27 years of farming here] like this," says Ruth.

About 200ha of their property was still underwater a week after they copped the 38mm because there are no rivers, creeks or floodways near their property.

There are drains but they were never designed to take such an onslaught of water.

They've been pumping water in attempt to drain land but that's posed problems.

"We were pumping the water from the front half of the property into the drain but it couldn't cope so the drain flooded into the back half."

They reckoned it would take about 10 more days to remove the water and production had already dropped because of trouble feeding cows.

"Some paddocks have 4-5 feet of water at the entrance. We're trying to graze wherever we can. It's too wet to feed silage."

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