AFTER a week of teasing, the long awaited rain band finally soaked the whole of Victoria this week, with more than 40mm falling over Western Victoria, taking total falls to over 65mm for many areas.
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In the east, the headline falls of over 100mm fell in the Strathbogie Ranges last week.
The rain, combined with falls earlier in the month in northern Australia, has sent livestock markets spiralling up.The spending spree seen at the Victorian weaner sales in the past fortnight has been backed up strong sale at major regional centres in NSW and Queensland, pushing cattle prices up to their best levels in up to three years.
Sheep prices have also followed trend, with breeding crossbred ewes making up to $263 at Kyneton last Friday.
The cropping sector also welcomed the rain, although it will force cash-strapped growers to find dollars for herbicide to control summer weeds.
"There's no doubting the benefit of stored moisture," Grain Producers Australia (GPA) chairman Andrew Weidemann said.
"It is good that many croppers got over 50mm in total, that means there will be a worthwhile amount of moisture to be stored, anything under 25mm is of negligible value at this time of year."
While most of the farmers in the State's west are delighted at the break in the extremely dry weather pattern, there were downsides.
Falls were not generally heavy enough in the parched Pyrenees and eastern Grampians region to spark widespread run-off, dashing the hopes of graziers who had held off destocking hoping for run-off from the promised band.
Combined with that, existing dry feed is likely to be leached of nutritional value.
Ararat grazier Charlie de Fegely said there had been heavy soaking rain in the area but any feed on the ground was likely to be "shot".
Graziers had lost perennial grasses, which were unlikely to regenerate because of the ongoing dry.
He said the Pyrenees region was doing it toughest.
Rabobank Hamilton rural manager Dion Brook said it was unlikely the rain would result in much run-off into dams.
Sally Davis, Samui stud, Lake Bolac, said they had managed to keep all their Merino and White Suffolk flock, although they were now in containment pens.
"We had 62mm in the past 10 days and we are calling it water from heaven because we didn't have any drinking water," Ms Davis said.
She said she was not concerned about the loss of dry feed, because it was almost exhausted anyway.
"The rain flattened all the dry feed – there wasn't much of it anyway because of the storms.
There are still some standing cereal crops in the Lake Bolac district, which she said would be downgraded due to the rain.
