IT WAS time for a quick fuel pitstop when Farm Weekly called in to see York grower Rhys Turton last week.
Rhys farms with his parents Mike and Betty at "Elton" north of York, where they run 2000 breeding ewes and lambs, as well as cropping 400 hectares of wheat, barley and oats this year.
Rhys also does contract harvesting and cartage and teams up with neighbour Wesley Cheney to get both their crops off.
"It has been an incredibly wet and fairly cold season and we thought it was going to be an absolute corker, but it didn't come out as well as we hoped," Rhys said.
"The Latrobe barley has gone about 3.5 tonnes per hectare and the quality has been excellent, coming out at malting grade easily, low screenings and good weight and colour but the oats have been a bit of a disappointment, battling to crack 3t/ha, despite having an agronomic package that had set it up for about 4t/ha or better.
"The biggest thing we noticed was sheep feed - we still run half the farm to sheep so it was an incredible year for pastures and clovers and they have done very well this year."
The family was yet to start in the Mace and Cobra wheat crops but Rhys said he was expecting solid yields.
"We grew Cobra - it did well and then we got out of it for a couple of years but it was a pretty solid performer so we got back into it and I think it will go quite well," he said.
"It's a hard wheat, fairly robust and while it hasn't quite looked the part it seems to compete with weeds quite well and in the past we've achieved yields of 3.8t/ha.
"We'll get into it and see but I wouldn't mind betting it will give Mace a bit of a push."
