This comes after heavy rainfall over June and July across the Wimmera.

One licence holder, Norton Estate winery owner Chris Spence, said the season was looking very encouraging with regular rain not only reaching the required trigger for surface water allocations, but topping up Grampians reservoirs and providing much needed soil moisture ahead of summer.

A 'trigger' allows a licence holder to access irrigation licence volume when the levels reach a certain point.

The Wimmera Catchment Surface Water and Groundwater Local Management Plan details the diversion 'trigger' rules, which allow surface water licence holders access to their full allocation once a minimum of 10,000 megalitres has flowed through the Glenorchy gauging station at any time during the calendar year.

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Wimmera River surface water licence holders are permitted to extract up to their full licence volume during the 2021-22 year.

"The more rain we get at this time of year means there is more moisture in the soil when the vines wake up in the middle of September," Mr Spence said.

"If we get good rainfall again through October and November, that will set up the vines up for the upcoming summer and saves a lot of water use."

Mr Spence said the surface water allocation provided an important resource for the vineyard and stock production, as an alternative to desalinated bore water.

"The surface water allocation is important to have on hand to manage extreme weather over summer," he said. "When we have heat waves, we can extract enough water to give the vineyard a good watering over three to four days to avoid damage to the vines or the fruit we're producing."

The rain wasn't all good news for Wimmera with Haven market being cancelled for the upcoming market on Saturday, August 7.

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