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Review for the Murray

The Murray Darling Basin Authority is launching an independent review for the River Murray, to be sure every state has the right amount of water.

They need to work out how much water is in each state and where it's being allocated.

Chief executive Rob Freeman says Government says new sharing arrangements between states were agreed to by governments and so now the Authority is checking to see if they did their sums right.

He says the review is simply to make sure they've allocated the water as per the rules.

He says the rules give water to each state equitably.

Mr Freeman says if the accounting hasn't been done right and some states have missed out on water, then subsequent in-flows will be established.

The results are expected mid-February.

Water prices firming

Water prices are sitting at $320 this week.

Up in the irrigation region of Victoria - irrigators can buy and sell water to produce their crops.

Prices fluctuate depending on supply and demand - a bit like the grain and wool market.

Mark Seibentritt from Waterfind says most water have been moving pretty quickly at around the $300 mark for the past month.

Mr Seibentritt says overall there is a gradual increase in price due to supply and demand and the increasing temperatures are adding to that demand.

He says the next allocation announcement is due on the 15th of January.

He says growers should be watching changes to carry over policies, which are expected next week.

Changing wheat varieties

If you're a wheat farmer - what variety of wheat did your parents' plant?

And do you reckon there's much difference between the old style varieties to today's modern ones?

Well a newly completed demonstration trial shows just how far our wheat breeding has come over the last 100 years.

Greg Bowey from the Department of Primary Industries says the trials compared Federation from 1901 and Olympic from 1956, with the modern varieties.

He says the old varieties were considerably lower in yield.

Federation was a tonne per hectare lower than modern varieties.

Mining to start in Ouyen this month

Iluka will begin mining for mineral sands at a site near Ouyen this month.

This week the company got the final nod of approval for the 200-million dollar project from the state government

The company's Peter Beilby says they'll start construction on site to make sure they're ready to start mining.

That will mean putting in roads and letting the mining contractor set up.

Mr Beilby says the mine will start producing heavy mineral constitute in May and June.