I spoke to Stew Wadey, a Waikato farmer with Federated Farmers on Monday.  We had a great chat about what’s happening across Waikato farms and while things aren’t too bad, conditions perhaps aren’t as rosy as some other regions.

Stew says, like other farmers, June and early July were great grass growing months, with plenty of rain and mild conditions however due to the droughts earlier in the year they didn’t build up autumn save pasture.

Another problem is black beetle now at endemic levels.  It’s creating dead pasture from about Tokoroa northwards.

What you need is some very cold weather to kill off the beetle but apart from a few frosts, conditions have been fairly mild this winter in Waikato.  And as Stew said, the beetle lives underground where a few frosts wont really kill them – it needs to be consistently cold.

Overall though, things could be worse and here’s hoping the warmer weather might see an earlier start to spring.

But back to winter and a large and deep low pressure system is forming off the west coast of the North Island and is set to bring heavy rain to parts of New Zealand that have already suffered from flooding this winter.

The angle of the low means that heavy rain is likely to set in later on Wednesday across Northland, Coromandel Peninsula and Bay of Plenty.

The crown forecaster already has high confidence that rain warnings will be issued for Bay of Plenty across Wednesday and Thursday.

Some crop farmers spoken to by Country99TV say that the weather has damaged up to 30% of crops in the Bay of Plenty region, further rain and wind could cause more problems.

It's not just the North Island that will be in for rain - the South Island is also likely to see heavy rain.  Northern and north eastern parts of the South Island may also see rain warnings issued Wednesday or Thursday.