Agriculture
16 March, 2025
JUST A SMELL
By CHRIS EARL IRRIGATORS have been hit with tougher rationing and northern Loddon lakes are draining quickly as the big dry extends into autumn. Piles of rotting European carp are building at Lake Lyndger while Lake Boort’s level is down to 300mm...
By CHRIS EARL
IRRIGATORS have been hit with tougher rationing and northern Loddon lakes are draining quickly as the big dry extends into autumn.
Piles of rotting European carp are building at Lake Lyndger while Lake Boort’s level is down to 300mm.
Most Loddon districts have barely had 20mm of rain this year and storms Sunday night were patchy.
While 14mm was recorded at Tarnagulla as a dust storm whipped through the district, Bridgewater had about 5mm and Bridgewater North just 2mm.
Further north there were no falls. Boort-Quambatook farmer and Victorian Farmers’ Federation president Brett Hosking said: “We went to bed with the smell of rain in the air ... that was it.”
The desperate wait for rain was heightened for irrigators late last week when Goulburn Murray Water tightened rationing of the delivery share for irrigators in Boort, Dingee and Calivil by 30 per cent to 120 per cent.
GMW says 10-day rationing cycles will continue. GMW incident controller Mark Bailey said the cut was “due to ongoing dry conditions and increasing irrigation demand.
“Adjusting the percentage of delivery share will help GMW maintain reliable service and reduce potential delays in customers receiving their orders.”
Major Boort district irrigator Tony Sawers said better investment was needed to develop water allocation software and to maintain and widen the Waranga Western Channel.
Mr Sawers said the 120 per cent ration limit could prove optimistic as farmers in the district make adjustments to their watering schedules.
“Rationing impacts productivity,” said Mr Sawers whose farms are mid-way through their tomato harvest.
“The dry has suited tomatoes but not anything else.”
Mr Sawers says a solution for future irrigation seasons would be to widen a 16km stretch of the channel at Bears Lagoon.
VFF water council chair Andrew Leahy said questions had to be asked of GMW on how it could run the irrigation system at capacity.
Mr Leahy said the amalgamation of delivery shares held on the same property could address farmers “not getting caught out”.
The South West Loddon pipeline continues to be a saviour for farmers between Wedderburn and Newbridge.
They said at the weekend that despite low rainfall since November, access to the supply had again been a lifeline.
Meanwhile, levels at Boort lakes are dropping fast. “Lake Lyndger only has about 150mm of water left and by next week will be down to a puddle,” said Paul Haw.
“Practically all of the fish have died and there are thousands of fish skeletons around the perimeter. All of the fish are European carp above 3kg as the pelicans eat anything under 3kg.
“At the moment there are about 600 pelicans working the wetlands around Boort,” he said.
Lake Boort has about 300mm of water left in it. “The fish are expected to die in about 10 days as the salinity and the water temperature rise. There could be up to 100 tonnes of carp on Lake Boort when this happens,” he said. “At the moment there are 20-plus Aboriginal cooking mounds coming out of the water on the east side of the lake, indicating the first people came to eat the fish in the past before they died.“