Sugar cane drowns in northern floods

A SIGNIFICANT amount of Queensland's sugar crop has been drowned by days under flood waters, cane growers say.

Peak sugar cane group Canegrowers also fears there will be significant and widespread damage to the industry's infrastructure after a fortnight of monsoon rains and floods.

Canegrowers chief executive Ian Ballantyne said the full extent of the damage was unknown but growers in the inundated areas would suffer heavy losses.

"Cane stops growing once it gets very wet feet and it can only hold its breath for a few days before it drowns," Mr Ballantyne said.

Receding flood waters will reveal significant damage to infrastructure, including the need to clear fields of flood debris before harvesting of the surviving crop can occur.

Sugar-growing areas around Tully, Innisfail, Babinda, Ingham and the Burdekin have been affected and there are fears the monsoonal downpours could move south into the Mackay region.

Ironically, as eastern Australia's summer of extreme weather continues, sugar growing areas in the state's southeast around Bundaberg, Isis and Maryborough are in need of rain.
AAP