Despite intense local and national interest in the fate of many bales of cotton swamped after a dam wall collapsed on Cubbie Station, the giant property's owner, Macquarie Asset Management, has indicated it won't be commenting further about the incident.
The breach on the 93,000 hectare irrigated Dirranbandi district cropping property followed storm rain in the district at the weekend, with the rain succeeded by windy weather.
Cubbie has 22,000 hectares of irrigated cotton and grain farmland.
Wet soil conditions had already prevailed before Dirranbandi received about 23 millimetres of rain 10 days ago, then a further 11mm on the night of September 9.
The saturated black soil and extra runoff combined with windy conditions to compound the eroding impact on the storage levee wall, which was subsequently breached at the weekend.
Runoff from the site is understood to have been contained and managed, however a representative for Macquarie said there was unlikely to be any current comment about the incident.
No specifics have been released about the amount of water involved or how much cotton has been damaged or caught by the flooding, or what sort of earthworks will be required to repair the damage.
However, the number of bales involved is likely to be relatively small compared to Cubbie's cotton production capacity which can be up to 330,000 bales in good seasons.
The Macquarie Bank group's big agricultural asset owner, which last month reportedly paid $120m for another big irrigation holding at Emerald in Central Queensland, has had full ownership of Cubbie since March.
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Aside from its latest 6000 Cowal Agriculture acquisition, Macquarie' Asset Management's $3 billion agricultural investment portfolio includes Paraway Pastoral's 4.5m hectares of livestock properties and 12 Viridis Ag grain properties.
Cotton industry officials noted that even if inundated, a big portion of the flooded bales on Cubbie Station would likely be salvaged for ginning at a later date.
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Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
