Kellie Lazzaro reported this story on Tuesday, September 7, 2010 12:27:00

ELEANOR HALL: Well after years of crippling drought, many farmers across regional Victoria are finding it hard to ignore the silver lining.



The torrential rain has drenched arid paddocks and some say the floods may put an end to Victoria's 13-year drought.



Agronomist, Dale Grey, spoke to Kellie Lazzaro.



DALE GREY: And the floods that are coming down the creeks and the rivers are encroaching out onto people's pastures and crops causing them to be pretty waterlogged and going yellow but fortunately a lot of those areas the water is really receding reasonable rapidly.



So it's come on and off in a reasonably short period of time, which means that it shouldn't do too much harm as long as we can allow those paddocks to dry out and see some sunshine in a pretty short period of time.



KELLIE LAZZARO: So while the rain may have caused short-term problems to crops, there are benefits?



DALE GREY: Look absolutely Kellie, and as I said it's early days because who knows what the follow-up weather might be but the potential for many areas of the state, particularly for crops, would be going up by the day.



For irrigators, in particular, our dairy industry in northern Victoria has really struggled over the last five years of a lack of irrigation water and even though things are a bit muddy in their paddocks at the moment I think that they're probably smiling because at least the irrigation water over summer is something that they're not going to have to worry about this year.



KELLIE LAZZARO: Are the benefits going to be felt right across the state?



DALE GREY: Absolutely. We might use some production in some of our wetter, higher rainfall areas but well and truly made up for by the crop that you can potentially have got off some of those drier areas if they have a much above average year.



The other things that can happen for those areas of course is that socially many of those areas have been quite dry and their lakes and things have been empty and the rivers are empty, but the water that will be coming down will be, you know people will be getting the speed boat, getting that ready to go this summer and in a couple of years the fishing should be quite good.



So people will just feel better in themselves living in those drier areas I think and with any luck a bit of tourism will return which is has really been absent for many seasons.



KELLIE LAZZARO: Is it too early to call an end to Victoria's 13-year drought?



DALE GREY: It's always a little bit early to do those things but certainly agronomically things are growing very well at the moment. The catchments are flowing and performing quite well but they would need a few more years subsequent to that to sort of say that there's been a complete reversal of that drying that's been going on.



And of course economically, because things are so wet at the moment and might be good in spring, that doesn't automatically fix up the bank balance problems that you've got at the moment from four or five poor years. So those effects will be sort of much more longer lasting, but certainly it's the sort of season that we needed to see the breaking of the drought that's for sure.



ELEANOR HALL: That's agronomist, Dale Grey, speaking to Kellie Lazzaro.