SA farmers celebrate dramatic turnaround after record rain

Last year there wasn't a blade of green on Megan Lister's farm east of Wudinna. Now the grass is so thick she's losing calves in it.

There has been a dramatic change of conditions in parts of South Australia that were gripped by drought 12 months ago.

At the height of the dry, Ms Lister was hand-feeding stock around the clock, but in May the area received record monthly rainfall.

"Green, everywhere green," Ms Lister said.

"We were just trying to find this calf to tag and we spent the last five minutes driving around trying to find it and it was hiding in the green grass. We can't find them half the time."

A 160mm downpour in February marked the start of the recovery and the rain has continued.

"Everything is just looking so fresh," Ms Lister said.

"The cows are in excellent condition, the calves are calving down into a green feed.

"It just makes a huge difference."

She managed to get through the drought without offloading stock.

This year Ms Lister has also planted about 809 hectares of crops, mostly wheat and barley, in the hope of making the most of the good conditions.

"Definitely has set us up for the rest of the year, so that's a bonus," she said.

"We can get feed stored away and hopefully be a bit in front again."

Statewide rebound

It is not just farmers on the Eyre Peninsula who have seen the improvement.

Digital Agriculture Services earth observation and data science leader Sam Atkinson said satellite analysis suggested almost 2 million hectares of crops were already in the ground across the state.

That figure is expected to grow as the season progresses.

"The great news for South Australia this year is it had really good early rain in February and March, which triggered a lot of growth, particularly in pastures and in sort of the lower rainfall areas, but also more broadly, which I'm sure is quite a relief after two pretty hard years," Mr Atkinson said.

"This is the best year since at least 2020.

"But it's even running at about 10 days in front of where we were right in 2022 and 2023, which were both, in general, pretty good seasons across South Australia. So hopefully it keeps raining and tracks in that direction."

Wet autumn sets records

Bureau of Meteorology climatologist Caitlin Minney said several rainfall records were broken across South Australia in May, resulting in a wetter-than-average autumn for most of the state.

"It's a very different situation leading into winter for much of South Australia, compared to very dry conditions over the last couple of years," she said.

"For pretty much the whole state, excluding small areas in the far south-east, it was a wetter-than-average autumn.

"This includes areas along the east of the state that recorded the highest on record — so, the wettest autumn on record.

"It was a wet start to the season, as well as May rainfall that really contributed to that above-average rainfall."

Records included 124.8mm at Renmark Airport in May and an autumn total of 205.4mm at Gluepot Reserve in the Mallee district.

But the wet times may not last. The BOM is forecasting a drier and warmer-than-average winter for most of the state.

Early start boosts crops

Farmer Matt Cadd grows wheat and lentils at Agery, just south of Kadina on the Yorke Peninsula.

He has decided not to grow canola due to the high cost of fertiliser, which the crop needs more of than others.

Mr Cadd said this season was a significant improvement on last year's conditions, with rainfall already exceeding his total for all of 2024.

He needs only another 50mm to surpass last year's figure entirely.

"The fact that we've been able to get crops established a month earlier than we did last year, they're growing well, while we've got good rainfall," Mr Cadd said.

He started and finished sowing his crops a month earlier than usual and said they had "come out of the ground quite quickly", leading to optimism for a good harvest.

"If things were to get a little bit dry in a couple of months, the plants have been up long enough that they should have a decent root system to be able to … access that deeper moisture in the soil," Mr Cadd said.

Rain puts potatoes at risk

The recent rains have not brought happy times for everyone.

In the South East the seasonal conditions have created an unusually difficult year for potato growers, according to Buckley Innovative Farming director Terry Buckley.

The recent rains have put hundreds of tonnes of his product at risk.

"We've still got potatoes that we could potentially lose, that we can't get to harvest, which is never good," Mr Buckley said.

"[It's] quite a significant amount of potatoes and a very significant amount of money.

"We've sort of got most things bogged or been bogged in this last few days … so it's really got difficult and there's not much fun left at this time of the year, so we should have been out."

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