Australia Harvest Slowed By Rain; Cotton Quality Threatened
By Andrew Owen and Drew Lerner
Kansas City, March 23 (World Weather Inc.) – Queensland and New South Wales, Australia were recently exposed to several waves of precipitation. Rainfall during the past week was great enough to bolster soil moisture ahead of autumn planting, but it also slowed or stalled the harvest of many summer crops. Much of the greatest rain fell near and along the Pacific coast where serious flooding occurred at times. However, some significant rain totals also occurred inland impacting corn, soybean, sunseed, sorghum, rice 
and cotton maturation and harvesting. The biggest concern besides damage to homes and personal property along the coast was for the quality of maturing cotton in the open boll stage of development. Other crops were not seriously impacted other than harvest delays. Eastern Australia will be much drier during the next seven days compared to the most recent week and the ground will have a chance to firm up and harvesting will gradually resume. There is, however, a developing tropical cyclone northeast of the nation that could change the forecast. The cyclone is already expected to impact the upper Queensland coast Sunday into Monday and there is some concern it might turn more to the south.
Coastal areas of Queensland and New South Wales reported abundant to excessive rainfall during the past week. Moisture totals for the seven-day period ending this morning ranged from 2.00 to 8.75 inches most often with local amounts up to 18.75 inches. Flooding was most serious along the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales where damage was greatest and the impact on businesses and homes was greatest.
Rain also fell significantly further inland where summer crops struggled with excessive heat and dryness for much of the summer. Rain totals in many key summer crop areas ranged from 1.00 to 2.50 inches with a few areas in sugarcane areas of Queensland reporting 5.00 to 13.50 inches. One location in northern New South Wales reported nearly 5.00 inches of rain. Mysteriously, a fair amount of interior southeastern Queensland was missed by the rain event. However, rain fell throughout most of Victoria and northward into a large part of the Queensland grain, oilseed and cotton production region. Some of the excessive rain also reached into a part of the Darling Downs agricultural region as well as in some of the dairy land in that region.
Most of the rain in crop areas would have been welcome several weeks ago when east-central Australia was enduring a prolonged period of record and near-record heat and dryness. The impact of summer extremes was to greatly reduce unirrigated summer crop yields after a tremendous start to the growing season following La Nina induced flooding rainfall 
late last winter and during the spring.
Rain in mid-March is not usually welcome since the majority of summer crops are filling and maturing with some being harvested. Corn, soybeans, cotton, sunseed and sorghum are produced in a large part of southeastern Queensland and eastern New South Wales with some rice production in southern New South Wales. Only those crops produced in the immediate southeastern corner of Queensland were unaffected by the precipitation. The summer’s heat and dryness pushed crops to maturity much faster than usual making the rain less appealing since a majority of the crops were maturing and had little use for it. However, some late season crops will likely find the moisture welcome and of some benefit.
Rain at this time of year is of use to the coming wheat, barley and canola planting season, but that is still about a full month away and quite often big March rains like this rarely are still in the soil when mid- to late April arrives because of seasonal drying that usually evolves in the next few weeks.
Most of the quality of summer crops impacted by the past week of r rain did not change much. However, sunseed and cotton are usually the most vulnerable to wet weather at harvest time and the quality of both crops can decline. Sunseed harvesting began in February and will continue for a few more weeks whereas cotton harvesting has only begun and will be aggressive in the next few weeks.
Too much rain in cotton areas during the harvest can reduce fiber quality as well as delay the harvest. Crops are more mature than usual because of the summer heat and dryness and this week’s rain might have been enough to raise some concern about fiber quality. Normally, a couple of inches of rain would not seriously harm cotton quality, but when it occurs over multiple days the impact becomes a little greater. Worry over additional rain is the biggest issue in cotton areas right now. The crop needs to dry out and remain dry to preserve and protect the crop.
Saturated soil is present in many of the areas that received more than 2.00 inches of rain during the past week, but as dry as the ground was prior to this period most of the moisture in crop areas was absorbed quickly. The moisture was not as much as threat to field conditions (away from the coast) as much as it was a concern for the quality of cotton and sunseed. Some quality decline may have occurred over the past week, but most crops will recover without a tremendously negative impact, but additional rain would be a serious threat.
A persistent dry and warm environment would be welcome in much of Queensland and New South Wales in the next few weeks for the best maturation and harvest conditions. However, periodic showers will continue instead. No more heavy rain is expected and most of the showers advertised for the coming week will be brief and light, but producers would prefer absolute dryness to quickly dry out the region and get harvest back into full swing.
The greatest rainfall coming up over the next few days will occur in east-central New South Wales and were a few county-sized areas will receive 0.20 to 0.80 inch of moisture with a slight chance for upwards to 1.00 inch of moisture. Most of that will occur Friday and Saturday. Most other showers expected through the weekend will not have much impact and net drying is expected.
One potentially complicating factor will be associated with a tropical disturbance located 161 miles northeast of Willis Island (northeast of Australia). This disturbance has potential to become a tropical cyclone and it is expected to move toward the upper Queensland coast. World Weather, Inc. is concerned that some of the moisture from this potential cyclone will impact more of the already flooded region along the central Queensland coast from Mackay to Rockhampton and Gladstone where 5.00 to 13.50 inches of rain already occurred in the past week. Most of the predicted heavier rainfall is expected to be north of Mackay, but the storm needs to be closely monitored for possible further development and an adverse impact in northern sugarcane areas and for the potential of a turn to the south that would impact previously flooded areas.
A mid-latitude frontal boundary may also move through eastern Australia during mid- to late week next week and that may also help draw some of the moisture from the developing tropical cyclone to the south into key grain, oilseed and cotton areas. The situation needs to be closely monitored, but today’s forecast is favoring a drier bias for most areas that were recently inundated with rain.
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