Agricultural contractors are despairing at the wettest spring many can remember. Almost constant rain has delayed the start of maize planting and could impact on yields in autumn.

'We've never had a spring like this in 35 years of contracting,” says William Litchfield of Litchfields Agricultural Services, Te Puke.

A beautiful rainbow seen from Te Puna. Photo: Tamsin Phillips.

'I have a gut feeling that when we do get maize planted, the effects of this rain will be felt at the other end, at harvest, and in the quality of the maize.”

William says maize planting would normally be well underway by now but the paddocks are too wet for cultivation.

Tim White of Neville Marsh Contracting, Te Puke, says ground conditions throughout the Bay of Plenty and Rotorua regions where the company grows maize are too wet to work.

'You can't disc the soil and the power harrow would just turn out mud pies. We need three to four days of fine weather for things to dry out on the high country and probably up to 10 days on the lower country.”

Tim recalls that around six years ago there was a wet spring when the company switched maize varieties to cope with the weather conditions.

Eric Cullen of Eric & Erna Cullen Contracting, Rotorua wonders if there's any rain left 'up there” as so much as fallen in recent weeks.

'We've been getting up to 20ml of rain a day. We need three to four days of good weather to cut silage but we are not even getting four hours between showers. I thought the weatherly air flow would blow the rain away but it hasn't.

'There may have bene other springs like this but in 43 years of contracting, I can't remember one,” says Eric.

Bill Webb of Bill Webb Contracting says he can't recall a spring like it.

'In the last 36 days were have had only about two days of fine weather when we could maybe have got silage off paddocks.

'We haven't had big falls of rain but the ground is so saturated that even 9 ml leaves puddles everywhere.”

Bill hopes to make silage this weekend in a brief fine spell but says farmer are unable to take delivery of unwrapped silage for storage in pits because conditions on their farms are too wet for trucks.

'I've been talking to one farmer who got his four-wheel drive quad bike stuck bringing in the cows and other farmers who are walking to get the cows now as conditions are two wet and slippery for operating bikes.”

Maize growers are considering planting shorter rotation varieties of seed which will help reduce the impacts of late planting, but could also negatively affect the tonnage grown.

Lack of sunshine is also affecting the quality of grass with farmers supplementing pasture with other feeds to keep their cows in good condition.

It's not just agricultural contractors who are finding the weather frustrating. Monica Julian of Julian's Berry Farm at Whakatane says while the company has harvested its first strawberries of the season, the quality was not good enough for fresh sales.

'The taste is great but we've frozen strawberries for other uses rather than sell them fresh.”

Reduced sunshine hours has affected pollination as bees don't like flying in wet weather but Monica is hoping conditions improve in time for bees to help with the production of strawberries for Christmas.