Dry, windy and cool conditions has proved the triple threat for Tasmania's poppy growers this year, forcing farmers to irrigate and spray pesticides at night to make up for lost time.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The state's poppy industry, worth between $300 and $400 million, provides about 50 per cent of the world's supply of opium poppies.
Hagley poppy farmer Stuart Coles is growing two crops this season, ahead of harvest in late January but admits climate conditions this year had been harsher.
"It's been dry, cool and windy so just trying to get around the crops has been relentless," he said.
"We find it hard to irrigate during the day."
He said one crop was planted in August and historically they had not needed to water in the winter month but as it was very dry this year they had to.
Mr Coles is one of Tasmanian Alkaloids' 250 growers across Tasmania, which grows the raw material to manufacture pharmaceutical ingredients for pain management world wide.
The company's Northern Midlands field officer Danny Schoenmaker looks after Mr Coles and the other poppy farmers from Hagley to Cressy.
IN OTHER NEWS
He said it was very inefficient to attempt to irrigate in windy conditions as 30 to 50 per cent of water could disappear into the atmosphere before it got anywhere near the ground.
"Our major challenge and the big difference this year has been the sustained wind that is both physically damaging crops and slowing the growth rates by making it difficult for the inputs...such as spraying and irrigation," he said.
"One of my grower's has lost a 20-hectare crop which was very unfortunate, due to the wind picking up and sand whipping tender plants off the roots.
"Farmers are doing a lot more work at night, in terms of spraying and irrigation, they're trying to make up for lost days with the wind."
Mr Schoenmaker said small pockets of damage had been felt across the region due to wind and the dry conditions meant farmers had heavily relied on the region's water supplies and irrigation infrastructure.
Despite the harsh conditions, the company's field operations manager Noel Beven said farmers had done an outstanding job to get the crops to where they were this year.
He said it had been a particularly dry, cold and windy growing season statewide.
"It's somewhat abnormal in the fact that all those three factors are combined," he said.
"It's been very difficult for farmers to get their herbicide applications on with good timing because of the wind conditions, a lot of things haven't been as favourable as you would usually expect them to be.
"Poppy crops at the moment are really in need of some good rain, farmers are working really hard to keep irrigation up in crops and in some cases we're running quite short of irrigation water."
To keep up with global supply and demand Mr Beven said close to 7000 hectares of poppy had been planted this year for the company, up from 5000 last year.
