HARVEST in the Great Southern is getting into full swing and some growers are pleasantly surprised at how much their crops are actually yielding.
The relatively dry start to the season in most parts had farmers expecting much lower yields compared with last year's data but a small strip of rain which passed through the Borden area at Easter, has proven to be the saving grace for some farmers.
Last week Borden grower Lachy McFarlane was busy harvesting his first crop of barley for the year.
The 100 hectare Baudin crop made the most of the 100mm of rain which fell on Good Friday and washed away parts of the paddock.
"We had a good start here," Lachy said.
"It set us up really well with some good subsoil moisture and we were very fortunate to be able to get the crop into a nice moist seed bed.
"Everything went in really well and so far our barley is going between 2.9 and three tonnes a hectare."
The first three truck-loads delivered to Albany from the paddock had screenings of 26 per cent, 27pc and 28pc respectively.
"The screenings are just over for malt one but we're making malt two which is good," he said.
It's only the McFarlane's second harvest in Borden after they sold their Kojonup sheep property in 2009 and moved east to run a much larger cropping operation.
The giant step of giving up what they knew best, to pursue a different source of income, proved to the McFarlanes and their helpful neighbours that everybody was "in the same boat" and purely at the mercy of the weather, especially in what has turned out to be such a terrible year for many farmers throughout the Wheatbelt.
"Considering last year was our first year in Borden, we did relatively well compared to what we were hearing about other people who were suffering badly from the season," Lachy said.
Last season provided them with yields of about 2.2t/ha of barley, 2.1t/ha of wheat and 1.2t/ha of canola.
"For us it was a bit like this year," he said.
"It never rained in the spring but it was our first year in grains and it was a bit daunting."
The McFarlanes bought a header, chaser bin and sprayer to kick start their new cropping venture.
"In Kojonup we put in a little bit of oats and some barley for feed," Lachy said.
"We used a contractor to spray, spread and harvest it and we put it in with an old 711 International combine seeder."
The McFarlanes still run 1600 Merino ewes for prime lamb in Borden but have their sights firmly set on the cropping side of the enterprise.
"In the early stages of putting in and getting off our first crop we just copied everybody else," Lachy laughed.
"We still look over the fence at the neighbour to see what he's doing, then we do the same."
Lachy credited the early break for their good barley crop and said although the rain came he was pleased they held off until May 15 to start seeding.
"We could have gone in so much earlier because of the early rain and this was the first paddock put in but we were holding off because of the frost risk," he said.
"We were still early compared to a lot of people and I guess usually we'd go flat out to get it in but this time around we put in a paddock here and there, had a day off, then put in another paddock.
"There was no rush for us because we were lucky enough to get it in early and have the rain to back it up.
"That's why we had such a big yield potential because we got it in early with the moisture.
"Our agronomist said all we really needed to do was tick along over the winter and get an average spring to have a relatively good year.
"It turns out that we barely had a spring at all."
The McFarlanes have so far recorded around 350mm of rainfall for the year with about 220mm of that falling during the growing season.
After finishing their canola, which yielded about 800kg/ha, the McFarlanes were very happy with the way their harvest had set up.
"The prices have been pretty good and we've got about 250ha of Calingiri wheat in that we're hoping to get close to three tonnes a hectare," Lachy said.
"Here's hoping that it will go Noodle One but of course this year everybody has had problems with screenings.
"The price at the moment is about $425/t so there's a bit of money to be made there if we can get the yield."
After taking a recent dive, barley prices started to come back throughout the week.
The shift came on the back of industry advice in the Eastern States to get malting barley safely classified and stored in the centralised system before making sales, and then wait for competition for tonnage to lift.
The McFarlanes crop about 1200ha in Borden, a third each of wheat, barley and canola.
"There are definitely some major differences between farming here and farming in Kojonup but all in all it's going quite well considering the season a lot of other places have had," Lachy said.
