A Niwa Hotspot Watch advisory this month lists South Island hotspots as the south coast of Otago, much of coastal Southland, and much of Stewart Island. A hotspot is declared if soils are severely drier than normal. Last week, Environment Southland declared coastal areas in the province had been the driest since its records began in 1970, due to lower than normal rainfall and higher than normal temperatures in summer. At the Owaka Calf Sale in Balclutha last week, Shawn McAvinue asked farmers how dry it is on their farm and how they are coping.
Joey Bowmar, of Wyndham ... "We are extremely dry — the creeks have dried up. With the cold easterlies, she’s bloody dry. A lot of people were lucky and got lambs away to the works early. I’ve got some lambs ready but I’m waiting on space. A lot of store lambs have gone to Canterbury. It will rain but we don’t know when."
Peter Shepherd, of Waitahuna ... "It’s relatively dry — it’d be good to have a good shower of rain but you can only get what you’re given. We mainly sell store lambs and we are pretty well cleared out of our excess stock including the calves at the sale today so we’ve done the best we can."
Cam Burgess, of Puketiro, about 20km south of Owaka ... "We are pretty good down home, as we hug the native bush towards the coast, so it’s pretty good but everywhere north of Owaka is pretty bad."
Richard Pepperell, of Jack’s Bay in the Catlins ... "It’s very dry, we’re hoping for rain and for our calves to sell today."
Rikki McCall, of Owaka Valley ... "We are drier than normal for this time of year but we’ve still got grass. We got about 7mm of rain the other day, just enough to give the winter crop a bit of a drink but we are selling a few more store lambs than normal."
Geoff Dodds, of Wyndham ... "We’re up on the hill at the back of Wyndham and it’s dry down below us. We haven’t been getting too much rain but being higher up we get a bit of moisture from fog, which keeps the grass growing."
