Better than a dry Spring

Light Pass, well known for being a flood area, had vineyards and properties submerged in water thanks to the heavy rainfall last week.

Mr Wayne Grope, Light Pass, had one of his vineyard blocks in the same situation since it is next to the Para River.

He said 80 per cent of the vineyard was under water; while it had left a bit of a mess in the vineyard, it wasn’t all a bad thing.

“At this time of the year, it’s not detrimental. If it had come in four to six weeks time where you were just about to put fungus spray on, it could cause a bit of a problem,” said Wayne.

“But for us, right now, its more good than harm. It’s filling the soil profile, many soils are starting to get some salinity problems.”

The mulch and straw on his block by the Para River is hanging off the vines, but it will be a problem that they will be able to fix in a few weeks.

Another issue is that the next door neighbour’s gravel track had washed into the vineyard, which they plan to scrape out later. 

It has left a few extra odd jobs around that particular block of vineyard.

Compared to the big floods in the 80’s, this wasn’t such a big deal.

Wayne said that when the banks burst years ago, a tsunami of water came through and flattened the very same block.

So while the vineyards was submerged in water last week, at least it wasn’t to the extent of flattening to the whole block.

Wayne’s son, Scott, believes that this was a good rainfall which is already benefitting the future work.

 For the full story see this week’s edition of The Leader.