Extract from ABC News
With northern Australia's wet season officially over, rainfall maps show most of the north enjoyed an above-average season, except along the West Australian coastline.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria River Downs cattle station in the Northern Territory had its biggest wet season on record with 1,359 millimetres, beating the previous record 1,297mm set 120 years ago.
Victoria River Downs manager Rusty Richter said mustering had been delayed but he was not complaining.
"We've had vehicles and motorbikes bogged ... but the country looks tremendous," he said.
"We've perhaps had feed like this before [after a big wet season] but there's water running everywhere."
Further west, Jenny Riggs at Ruby Plains Station said the property had just over 1,000mm for the season, more than double its average.
"The grass can get sour when it gets too wet but we were pretty lucky in that the rain was fairly spread out and didn't stuff it," she said.
Monitoring grass from space
Australian company Cibo Labs uses satellite data to produce feedbase maps designed to give land managers a better insight into their property's pasture biomass.
Cibo Labs' general manager for extension and operations, Alastair Rayner, said the company's latest Total Standing Dry Matter (TSDM) map showed the "very high biomass levels" across most of the north.
"It's been an exceptional wet season and the impacts of some of the cyclones and tropical lows on fodder growth has been phenomenal," he said.
"Most stations will tell you it's one of the best [wet seasons] we can remember and the maps show that."
He said pasture growth in the Top End, southern Gulf region and through the channel country of Queensland was impressive and the maps showed the Barkly region was recovering from massive bushfires late last year.
Mr Rayner said the north's cattle industry had a good feedbase heading into first-round musters and fodder maps could help with planning, such as getting lighter cows onto feed
"It also means when muster happens, stations are going to have enough feed so that if they can't get cattle off or weaners need to be held for another four weeks they won't hit a crunch time," he said.
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