The irrigation season will soon kick-off for northern Victorian farmers, but with low opening allocations.

Although the water storages are relatively low, recent rains have turned around what was shaping up as a dry winter.

The 2025-26 irrigation season for Goulburn-Murray Water customers will open on August 15, with the Goulburn system forecast to start at about 66 per cent of high-reliability water shares and the Murray system about 57 per cent.

The forecast for Goulburn irrigators is 100 per cent HRWS by December 15, under average conditions. For the Murray system, it’s 83 per cent.

Broken River irrigators will be hoping to start the season with something in the allocation kitty.

Torrumbarry farmer Andrew Leahy will be making decisions over whether to grow a summer crop and how best to maintain his annual pastures for the 700-cow herd.

“And we’re looking at what we need to do for the autumn start-up,” he said.

“On summer crops, l’ll be thinking about putting in 80 hectares of maize, which will give me a better bang for my bucks, ahead of sorghum or millet.

“Maize does pretty well for the water delivered. Last year it took about 7 Ml/ha.”

Asked about the low opening allocations (49 per cent on August 1), Mr Leahy said one concern was that it would tend to drive temporary water prices up while, the Commonwealth buying up water for the environment would also do this.

However, he noted the long-term outlook circulated by G-MW forecast his region may achieve close to 100 per cent by February under dry conditions.

With improved winter rains during July, the soil profile on the Torrumbarry farm was reasonably full.

The Bureau of Meteorology says from August to October, above average rainfall is ‘likely’ to ‘very likely’ for most of mainland Australia.

As at June 1, active storage shared across Dartmouth Dam, Hume Reservoir, Menindee Lakes and Lake Victoria were at 56 per cent.

Murray-Darling Basin Authority river operations senior director Tom Zouch said while inflows for July were below-average, water transfers from Dartmouth Dam to Hume had already occurred to help meet the forecast demands over the coming months.

“We’re currently sitting around the middle of the ‘dry’ planning scenarios and we’re actively managing the system to stay ahead of need,” Mr Zouch said.

“We’re prepared for a range of conditions and we’re well placed to meet demands down the Murray this year, even if dry conditions persist.”

If conditions turn wet, storages at Dartmouth and Hume have capacity to capture inflows and boost resources.

The opening allocation for South Australian River Murray irrigators for the 2025‑26 water year is 100 per cent.

The outlook for Murray River water is available on the MDBA website.

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Wednesday, 7th June 2023

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