Farmers sit and wait

CLARENCE Valley sugarcane farmers are facing an anxious couple of weeks to see what effect the recent spate of wet weather has had on their already struggling crops.

The recent wet weather and flooding has left many cane crops in the Valley inundated with water, which could be a potential kick in the guts for local growers who are already staring down the barrel of a reduced harvest as a result of the 2011 January flood.

NSW Canegrowers Association president Vince Castle said growers from around Northern NSW met on Wednesday to discuss the situation facing the local industry but said at this stage it was still hard to tell what the impact of the wet weather was.

"We talked about the situation on the Tweed, the Richmond and the Clarence; we all agreed that we won't know how we stand for up to two more weeks," Mr Castle said.

"A lot of the cane in the area still has water in it, some of it has water over it. It's only just starting to drain off now and too many things can happen in the next two weeks, 10 days."

Mr Castle said the next few weeks would be an anxious wait for growers who were now at the mercy of the elements with further rain and also -maybe surprisingly - sunny weather having the potential to damage crops.

"We just hope we don't get too many heavy downpours of rain and that's a real worry because February and March can be very wet months in a normal year," he said.

"At the same time, hot weather too would be very damaging; as the water drains off the cane fields and it gets more shallow, a hot sunny day would make that water very hot and young cane won't stand too much scalding.

"That can be a big problem.

"So we're happy to see this overcast weather at the moment."

Mr Castle said further damage to local cane crops could make things even harder for local growers already facing a tough season, but said cane farmers were a resilient bunch and measures were already being put in place to deal with any setbacks and damage caused by the recent wet weather.