THE Wheatbelt's current weather situation can only be described as a mixed bag.
Last week Department of Agriculture and Food (DAFWA) director of practice and systems innovation for the grains industry, David Bowran, pointed to what he described as a distinct line which had divided the Wheatbelt's weather systems all season.
He said growers located to the west of the line had generally received intermittent rainfall measurements of more than 10mm in recent weeks and those to the east continued to record falls of 5mm or less.
"Some growers are thankful for receiving up to 25mm in the last few weeks and others still need much more," Mr Bowran said.
"Places like Mukinbudin, Beacon, Wialki and Kalannie have only had recordings of 5mm in the last two weeks."
But despite the difference in rainfall numbers the cumulative effect of relatively cool September days and scattered showers meant a large number of growers were surprised by how well their cereal crops had hung on.
By the same token, there were also patches of soil in the eastern Wheatbelt which had virtually no moisture left and after the hot days experienced on the weekend a number of growers reported that leaves on their short cereal crops had started to fall off, leaving them only with heads.
"It's surprising how resilient a lot of those crops have been in the lead-up to this time," Mr Bowran said.
"Many of them have already started grain-filling even though they are still short and don't have a lot of water in them.
"The fact they're already doing this means grain will be set.
"It may not be particularly big and there may not be a huge amount of it but it will definitely be set."
Mr Bowran said crop conditions in the western part of the Wheatbelt, from Geraldton to Esperance, were generally good and growers could expect to harvest up to two tonnes a hectare from their cereals.
"DAFWA models are saying 1t/ha won't be an unreasonable yield to achieve this season considering there are still some locations which have received less than 100mm of growing season rainfall," he said.
But this didn't stop a large number of central and eastern Wheatbelt growers from turning sheep back onto their paddocks in recent days after weighing up the cost of under-yielding cereal and oaten hay crops and the devastating impact of frost.
Late last week, farms from Wongan Hills to Nyabing were impacted by varying degrees of frost and just like in southern New South Wales, WA growers expected to count the cost of significant yield penalties.
Nowhere was hit harder than Merredin where farmers like Leigh Dolton counted the cost of -1.4 degree temperatures last Thursday night.
"It's still too early to tell what kind of damage has really been done but from past experience I would think it will cause a fair bit of damage," he said.
"We had 8mm of rain in the week leading up to it and even though we've only had 90mm of growing season rainfall things were looking good.
"It's happening all too often unfortunately."
Nyabing grower Scott Crosby was also waiting to count the cost of a frost which hit in the early hours of Friday morning.
He said although it wasn't a severe event because temperatures only dropped to zero or one degree, it was still enough to have an impact.
"There are growers in this area who are predicting up to 10 per cent crop damage from frost and that was before the frost event we had on Friday," Mr Crosby said.
"Luckily I don't think we're at that stage yet."
At Kendenup, Jim Kirkwood said staggered plantings had helped him to largely avoid the frost window so far this season.
He started seeding on May 10 and said cereals planted up to one week later would more than likely demonstrate yield penalties of up to 1t/ha due to frost.
Close by at Katanning, Ben Kowald's cereals avoided last week's frosts altogether.
"We had rain late in the week and it got really cold on Thursday night but it didn't quite get cold enough for a frost," he said.
"We've had rainfall events of 7mm, 16mm and 7mm in the last few days which is a great start to spring.
"We may need another rain but the last few rainfall events will at least get us a crop.
"Anything else from now on will be a bonus."
Russell Orr at Newdegate also managed to avoid the frost.
"This month we've had 25mm of rain on one side of the farm and between 15 and 20mm on the other side," he said.
"The crops are in their finishing stages now and we're relatively happy.
"We put 3000ha in early which all came up well and should finish well.
"The last 2000ha is struggling and probably needs a bit of rain but I've seen a lot worse areas than ours so we're lucky.
"You don't have to go very far east to see how some growers are really toughing it out."
Growers in the northern Wheatbelt were also in high spirits.
Maya farmer Brian McAlpine was nothing but positive when Farm Weekly spoke to him on Friday.
"We've had a number of rainfall events which have added up over the last couple of weeks to give us a bit of spring moisture," he said.
"We've recorded 2mm in the last couple of days and things are looking good.
"It's a below average season but the question was always going to be by how much.
"Scattered rains and cooler temperatures have helped to get the crops to a certain level of production which means it's not a disastrous year and we'll be able to take steps to get on with next year."
At Mullewa Ian Broad was of the same opinion.
He recorded between 190 and 215mm of growing season rainfall and was extremely happy despite the falls being extremely scattered.
"A matter of a month ago we were looking at harvesting hardly anything at all and now we have every chance of averaging between 1.8 and 2t/ha from our wheat," Mr Broad said.
"The canola looks terrific, the barley looks fine, our lupins look awful and we're counting our blessings."
