PURCHASING a second header was beneficial for Nick Panizza who wrapped up his harvest program on Sunday at Arthur River and Williams.
After many years of using just one header the decision was made to purchase a second CLAAS header for this season.
Last year the Panizzas hired a second header halfway through harvest and finished on New Year’s Eve.
“We got to last year and I was doing a lot more tonnes in comparison to 2015, and I was a long way off getting finished,” Mr Panizza said.
“We got to the middle of December and we still had a long way to go so we hired a second header.”
Now that he has finished harvest he is looking at moving the grain off-farm.
“Getting the grain away is the biggest challenge with our two headers, we have one truck and then the contractors help out, but contractors also have other people to cart for,” Mr Panizza said.
Nick and his brother Simon drove the headers, while their dad Bernie was in the truck and a casual employee was towing the chaser bin.
With 5000 mated ewes it can be hard to balance them with harvest, although their program is 80 per cent cropping and 20pc sheep.
“Over harvest we don’t even realise we have sheep,” Mr Panizza said.
“Mum is really good at looking over them,”
Sheep are an important part of the program and put on the land that is unable to be cropped.
With 1800 hectares of canola and 1200ha of barley Mr Panizza said it would have been a long harvest with just one header.
In total the Williams property received 670 millimetres of rain, making it one of the wettest seasons he has had there – including 200mm in February.
He said their best crops were grown off 450mm and once it got to 550m or more, it became a bit too wet.
The Arthur River property is only 30 kilometres away and received 140mm less.
“Towards the end of May we got another 80mm and all of a sudden it was really wet again, until it dried out at the start of July,” Mr Panizza said of the Arthur River property.
He said they were lucky to get the crop out of the ground with the summer rains, although some of their canola struggled to come up due to the sand country that couldn’t maintain the water.
Their cereals have probably gone the same way, although wet patches cost them.
Mr Panizza said his Williams property had patches that they didn’t even harvest because it was waterlogged.
“For the year we have had we are pretty happy with what we have got,” he said.
“We have cut all of our straw for hay, which helps us to not worry about burning.”
