HEAVY rain has belted down throughout the Riverina and southern NSW.
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More than 14mm fell on Tuesday night and steady rain continued throughout Wednesday.
Riverina Co-op agronomist, Tim Tarlinton said the rain was welcome despite pressure from summer weeds.
“Hopefully it will be enough to help fill up some dams and on-farm water storage,” he said.
The rain would also benefit pasture and lucerne crops.
However, Mr Tarlinton said the rain would cause an increase in germination of summer weeds.
“What it means for farmers is there will be another strike of summer weeds and they will have to do a follow up fallow spray,” he said.
Mr Tarlinton said many landholders had already sprayed for summer weeds including Bathurst Burr and hairy panic.
“For anyone with some decent lucerne summer rain equals happy days,” says southern NSW agronomist Don Kirkpatrick.
Mr Kirkpatrick of Mangoplah said the rain was a huge benefit for producers with lucerne.
“Lucerne is just the king of fodder.”
“It will help people to benefit from the high livestock prices,” he said.
Mr Kirkpatrick said the rain event also offered an opportunity for people to get onto the paddocks and bring some old pasture paddocks back into crop.
He said the timing of the rain was good to help producers control summer weeds because it would allow for germination.