THE 2016-17 harvest has been a record-breaking one in Western Australia.
Growers have delivered the biggest harvest in history with more than 16.1 million tonnes delivered by Tuesday, surpassing the 15.86 million tonne haul from the 2013-14 season.
CBH Group general manager operations David Capper said the record-breaking season was a rollercoaster for many growers.
"With exceptional rainfall and growing conditions during the season, crops were set up to be some of the best many growers had experienced in their farming careers," Mr Capper said.
"Optimism for a record crop was dashed with frosts in August and September causing significant crop damage for many regions.
"This presented the industry a real challenge in trying to understand the expected size of the crop.
"It's fantastic to see yields have surpassed expectations in non-frost affected areas and the crop has come in thick and fast, delivering the State the largest grain harvest in history."
Deliveries in the Geraldton and Esperance zones have wrapped up, while it's expected the Kwinana and Albany zones will continue to take grain for the next few weeks.
A "remarkable" finish to a remarkable production year was how WAFarmers president and Tammin grain grower Tony York summed up the record harvest.
"For many of us it's been a good year and certainly a remarkable production year," Mr York said on Tuesday.
"The State breaking the harvest record is a quite remarkable finish given the rollercoaster of a season we had.
"Unfortunately, there were also a lot of farms affected by frosts through the season - which makes the record all the more remarkable given that a number of farmers didn't have a very good harvest at all.
"And while it was a remarkable production year, it was just OK in terms of the farm budget.
"It was a very expensive crop because of the season, and particularly because of the promise of the early part of the season, a lot on money was spent on this crop and the prices for it are not good.
"It means there are some who have spent extra money on their crop only to have it damaged by frost and produce a below-average result, combined with the poor prices.
"For the rest of us, the bumper crop made up for the poor prices."
Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA president and York farmer Tony Seabrook was also amazed at the harvest record given the widespread frost damage mid-season.
"It's a staggering result on the back of serious frost," Mr Seabrook.
"I think everyone is a bit surprised - we've well and truly surpassed predictions that were as low as 14 million tonnes at one point.
"With a bad price year, it's great to see such good yields - it's clear the frost wasn't as bad as what was feared.
"It's a great thing, we don't need to see bad yields on top of bad prices so it's an excellent result," he said.
