TAMBELLUP grower Nick Lockyer had just crossed the harvest finish line when Farm Weekly called last week.
Nick cropped 1200 hectares this year, with wheat making up about 720ha and the rest a mix of canola, barley, lupins and oats.
"We had some weight issues in our Hotham oats while the Williams went through fine, which was a surprise as Williams is known for producing light grains," he said.
This year was the first time in about five years that Nick decided to give barley a go - and the yields did not disappoint.
"The Flinders barley was very good and we averaged 4.3 tonnes per hectare," he said.
"We want to mix the rotation up a bit more and as we also run sheep and we find that the barley stubble is a better sheep feed than wheat stubble."
He said waterlogging and frost had caused some issues in the Mace wheat which meant yields finished average overall.
"The annual rainfall was slightly up on average but it was the frequency that we had rain which meant the paddocks were too wet to get on to spray or apply nitrogen," he said.
"Frost touched up everything, but nowhere near what some people have had this year."
When asked what his cropping plans were for 2017, Nick quipped "more sheep".
"We've had quite a good year for the sheep - but we'll crop about the same amount next year, although we will reduce the wheat and maybe do a 50/50 split between wheat and barley."
