RIVERINA rice growers are defying the drought and planting crops this season.
NSW Rice Marketing Board chairman Noel Graham said he had hated not growing rice on his property, west of Deniliquin, NSW last year.
"It was the first year rice hadn't been grown on this place since it was opened up to rice in 1954," he said.
But when Sunrice came up with an offer to supply water at a discounted price, Mr Graham said he jumped at the chance.
"I wasn't going to because I'd used all my bore water pretty much on watering cereals and there wasn't enough left to grow rice . . . but that allowed me to use what water I had left over to put a rice crop in," he said.
Mr Graham used a combine to sow the rice in a paddock not far from his house on November 1.
"I'll definitely be watching it closely," he said.
Other growers will pool their limited surface water allocations to grow a single crop at the Rice Research Australia site near Jerilderie.
RRA manager Russell Ford said it was more efficient than individual growers trying to raise numerous small crops.
Mr Ford said drill sowing of 60ha of jarrah began this week and there were plans to also sow 20 lines of short-season varieties from experimental and developing lines.
The research group grew 70ha of rice for seed last year.
DPI Deniliquin agronomist John Fowler said rice growers were keen to ensure their industry survived.
Mr Fowler said growers with better groundwater had been encouraged by Sunrice's guaranteed minimum returns of $550 per tonne.
Sunrice grower services manager Mike Hedditch said it was too soon to know how many growers would plant rice this year, or the crop size.
Last season's harvest of 19,296 tonnes was a far cry from the record of 1.75 million tonnes, set in 2001.
