Southland's controversial irrigation ban will cease tonight, after Environment Southland (ES) decided not to extend their Water Shortage Direction.

The ES direction halting all irrigation across the province, was put in place two weeks ago (31 March) after the government announced a medium-scale adverse event for Southland and Otago.

While aimed at protect the extremely low river and aquifer levels and maintain essential human and stock water supplies, the directive also caused shock amongst farmers who were already battling feed shortages and COVID related processing delays.

The direction was subsequently amended twice, the first time just a day after the original issue (1st April), to exclude the upper Mataura River catchment.

Then three days later (4th April) it was again amended to exclude the entire Mataura River catchment and less connected and confined aquifers.

ES chief executive Rob Phillips said since the direction was put in place, rain had fallen across the region, easing the pressure on rivers and aquifers.

Rivers were responding well after the 13 to 40mm of rain overnight on Monday and increased soil moisture throughout the region following the rain on 5-6 April, he said.

Phillips said it had been important to take a precautionary approach with the Direction, as it was something the council had never put in place before.

“2022 was the driest year on record and March had the been the driest March we’ve ever had,” he said.

“Many in our community had been struggling with water for stock and we had concerns about the health of our waterways as well as community drinking water supplies and key industries.”

Federated Farmers Southland president Chris Dillon that while happy the direction was over, he was concerned that the full impact wouldn't fully hit until spring.

"Its just too late in the season and almost impossible to grow enough [feed] to meet demand," he said.

"Its going to really hit in the spring when the winter crops finish up early and there's not enough [grass] cover going into spring. That's when we will see the real concern"

Dillion said he expected, "fewer lambs, because we are not going into tupping in a good situation, and production losses within the dairy sector because there is not going to be the supplements available to push the cows."

He said with the sheer volume of feed currently being used, there would not be enough supply from arable farms to meet farmers' spring feed demands.