YOUNG cane was flattened, snapped like match-sticks, inundated with an ocean of water.
Cane growers in the Innisfail and Tully districts, only just recovering after Cyclone Larry tore through the region five years prior, were presented with unimaginable heartache after Cyclone Yasi ripped through their fields early on February 3, 2011.
Innisfail Canegrowers chairman Joe Marano, who has about 400 hectares under cane at Mourilyan, just south of Innisfail, said young cane in the district had no chance of withstanding the category five cyclone's wrath.
Initial sugar cane losses were put at $500 million but the real impact of Cyclone Yasi became clear once the harvest started later in the year.
In cane growing areas north of Townsville, the harvest went from 10.69 million tonnes in 2010 to 6.5m in 2011.
Some growers lost 100 per cent of their crops, while others only managed to harvest 20pc of their usual tonnage.
Mr Marano said Yasi could not be looked at in isolation, coming just five years after Cyclone Larry.
"Both were catastrophic, and both significant to the industry," Mr Marano said.
"Growers hadn't really recovered from Larry when they were impacted by Yasi.
"After Yasi, growers in the milling area between Innisfail and Tully, only harvested about 35pc.
"The effect on growers was astronomical, they thought they'd used up their life savings after Larry.
"Some growers cut less than 20pc of their normal crop, but still had to fertilise and spray the same area, pay the same rates, but only had 20pc of their normal income to do all those things."
Mr Marano said he had harvested 75 tonnes per hectare prior to Yasi, and only 22t/ha that year.
He said while growers got a one-off government payment of $25,000, there was no ongoing or continuous support.
"Growers have used up their life savings. With Yasi we had only just harvested and the cane was probably five foot high, it was straight and very brittle.
"Wind that excessive just snapped it, and the weather conditions that came after were not favourable.
"Some cane was not even knee high when we were cutting, but growers had no choice, it was the only source of income for the year."
Mr Marano said it took up to five years for cane growers to recover from a cyclone of that magnitude, as full production could not be returned until the entire crop was replanted.
"When cane is damaged from a cyclone, it's got to be replanted, it will never again grow to peak production.
"To replant the whole farm to get back to peak production it takes four to five years, you just can't afford to do it in one year."
Mr Marano said the high world sugar price was a saving grace for growers.
"If we didn't have a high price with a low crop, there would have been many that probably wouldn't have survived."
