Time is running out for farmers in Gisborne and Wairoa to sow corn seed for the summer season.
Sodden conditions caused by relentless rain have made it difficult to get tractors into the paddocks, forcing farmers to replant crops repeatedly - and it's threatening New Zealand's maize supply.
Half a metre of raw silt was deposited on Bruce Jefferd's Tolaga Bay farm during Cyclone Gabrielle. Hopes of a dry winter were dashed and a wet spring followed.
"Now we're facing a season of replants, late plantings - it's just difficult and the maize price has come back this year so it's quite testing," Jefferd said.
If the ground is too wet, the seed can rot before it can germinate, or if it does, it ends up drowning and the whole lot needs to be replanted.
Maize is Gisborne's main crop.
"Doritos, corn chips, I think we do most of the popcorn for New Zealand and cornflakes and those breakfast cereals all come from our food bowl," Gisborne farmer Toby Williams said.
The region also grows the seed that is used to plant maize.
"What's produced this year will be the seed available for next year's maize crop - if you can't plant it now and produce it during this summer, it won't be there for next spring and for next year's harvest," Federated Farmers arable chair David Birkett stressed.
It's the third year Mother Nature has threatened yield and it's costing farmers millions.
"Some of these guys have only got half their crops planted and the window is basically closed; that's equivalent to losing half your income but what's in the ground is also being affected by the weather as well," Birkett said.
"The cropping farmers are certainly pretty demoralised," said Jefferd. "This land probably, before the cyclone, had a value of $80,000 or $90,000 a hectare - it's probably worth half that now.
"It's not a good time to think, 'Oh I can't manage this' and bailout, you need to sort of grit and plug on," he said.
