Feeding time during the 2020 drought at a farm in Kereru, Hawke's Bay. Photo: Selby Jowsey
Ongoing dry conditions across Hawke's Bay have farmers on a knife's edge.
The region has had several months of warm, dry weather with little rainfall has meant pastoral farmers in particular may have some tough decisions to make if it does not rain soon.
[https://niwa.co.nz/nz-drought-indicator-products-and-information/drought-indicator-maps/soil-moisture-deficit-smd
NIWA's soil moisture deficit map] for this week showed coastal areas east of Hastings and parts of Central Hawke's Bay were the driest areas in the country.
There were brief showers around Napier on Wednesday morning - and a drop or two expected overnight - but farmers were not expecting it to break through brown, dry soil immediately.
Mark Warren of Waipari Station east of Waipukurau said while a dry spring was not unusual for early November, it was much drier than usual.
"It had a benefit that we had very good lamb survival in that late August and September period, and there's been pretty good docking lamb survival rates too, so that's a positive," he said.
"We are starting to look for a bit of rain at the moment. Spring crops are looking a bit thirsty, they're gasping a little bit. We'll just take what we can get."
Warren said the family was considering options like offloading stock, but would not act just yet.
"Yes, it's up for discussion, but we're not pulling those levers yet, but we're watching things.
"We've offloaded everything that we can just to split the risk and make sure we're not carrying any freeloaders."
The region's Federated Farmers president, Jim Galloway, said many farmers were irrigating heavily so crops like corn and squash take off.
But he said a positive was that at least the sunshine's been good for the lambs.
"The lambs have actually done very well this spring actually," he said.
"Everyone's looking at at how long this is going to last and some of them have got irrigation, so they're going full bore on that.
"If it does carry on dry, they'll be looking to cull early once a day. People are weaning a bit earlier and looking at what they can sell now at good profit margin, cause like cattle are looking quite good still. So there's a whole heap of strategy that they can put into place to help get through."
MetService was forecasting a warm remainder of the week for much of the East Coast - with Friday set to reach 28 degrees.
