JUST two weeks before Christmas the Whyte family, Kondinin, received 120mm of rain in two days.
For some farmers in the area, the big rain set in motion a financially crippling chain of events.
Some growers didn't finish harvest and others visited their bank managers and farm consultants to discuss the size of their overdrafts and the future direction of their farming businesses.
But the Whytes believed their business was lucky to emerge from the "big wet" relatively unscathed.
Al Whyte and his son Brendan farm 2025 hectares and lease an additional 1000ha north east of Kondinin.
And with a 2025ha cropping program of Magenta, Yitpi and Wyalkatchem wheat, Gairdner barley, Pallinup oats, peas and canola in the ground for the 2011/12 season, the rain couldn't have come at a worse time.
"The biggest impact came in the downgrading of our wheat quality and the associated financial implications that will have," Brendan said.
"I wouldn't go as far to say it will have a significant financial impact on us because in some respects we were lucky to get out of it as well as we did."
Despite large parts of a number of paddocks being under water for a number of days and weeks, on delivery to CBH Brendan was surprised to find much of his wheat was still received as ASW or APW.
"We still had Wyalkatchem that was going APW but that's not to say we didn't have nearly 400 tonnes of wheat go as Feed," he said.
"Each load was a mixed bag really.
"There wasn't one variety that performed better under the water stress than others so all we could do was take pot luck with each truck load delivered to CBH."
Brendan said although a percentage of their grain was largely downgraded due to quality issues caused by the excess moisture, current wheat prices did nothing to help the situation.
"With wheat prices being as low as they are at the moment, the fact that some of it went Feed won't make a massive difference to us," he said.
"If there was an $80/t or a $100/t spread between Feed and APW, which there usually is, it would have been a completely different situation for us.
"But because there is only a $30-$40/t spread at the moment our financial situation won't be quite as bad as it could have been."
Brendan said grain prices in general had been a major downfall throughout the entire season but considering how much rain they received and the kind of pressure it put a large number of eastern Wheatbelt growers under, he was happy to come out of it "pretty lightly."
Brendan's father Al couldn't remember a wetter harvest but said in 1986 the farm experienced some un-forecast rain which held things up for a number of weeks.
But like many successful growers Brendan and Al believed the key to getting through a drawn out harvest was to be adaptable and make decisions while on their feet.
"We didn't do any hay this year," Brendan said.
"We had some in but later did the sums and it was going to work out to be more efficient and profitable to harvest it."
After their harvest was held up for about two weeks the Whytes finally got back onto their paddocks, bogged the header a number of times and finished their program in the first week of January.
Now, like their neighbours, Brendan and Al have plans for a huge summer spraying program to rid their paddocks of the melon varieties, mint weed and fleabane which had come up in majority of their paddocks pegged for cropping in 2012.
"Pretty well everything will need to be covered again," Brendan said.
"There are all kinds of weeds, many of them we haven't seen for a number of seasons."
But despite the extra work and added pressure of controlling associated weed seedbanks the Whytes still planned to sow the same kind of acreage this year.
"We've budgeted to put in the same kind of hectares and it should be fine as long as we get all the weeds sprayed out properly beforehand," Brendan said.
"We'll deal with the problem paddocks as they arise."
After such a long and wet harvest it was difficult to comprehend wishing for more rain but Brendan said he'd happily receive some to keep the soil profile in good stead.
"I don't want to think about water," he laughed.
"But as long as we get some sub-soil moisture in March or around then it should shape up to be a good 2012/13 season.
"It's always hard to say that this far out from the next harvest - just look at what happened this year."
In the upcoming weeks the Whytes will use CBH's Quality Optimisation (QO) system to virtually blend loads and make the most of their harvested wheat quality.
"We'll look to blend some tonnes that were delivered to CBH before the rain," Brendan said.
"Much of it had protein issues and we're hoping to get a lot of it out of ASW and up into the APW grade."
The Whytes also kept some grain to feed their 1000 Merino ewes and 500 Merino and Merino-Poll Dorset cross lambs.
The rest of January will be spent drenching, dipping and moving sheep in the hope of maintaining their current stocking rate, supported by full dams and plenty of green feed heading into the new year.
