THE 35 degree scorcher earlier this month led to a lot of grain being damaged and accelerated the start of this year’s harvest.
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Canola swathing, or cutting down ready for harvest, started last week and is due to ramp up significantly this week, according to WA Farmers Esperance Ravensthorpe zone president Glenn Mitchell.
“A couple of early canola crops were swathed last week and will probably be ready to harvest next week,” Mr Mitchell said.
“But we will see a lot of canola go down over the next fortnight.”
Mr Mitchell said farming areas in the centre of the district had looked excellent in recent weeks, but had tapered off due to a lack of finishing rains.
“Rain now would still benefit a lot of crops like wheat and peas but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it.”
He said farmers were one rain short of a good season.
The hot day led to a lot of crops tipping, or having grains in the top part of the head burnt off, due to heat stress combined with a lack of moisture.
“Crops north of Grass Patch and around Salmon Gums had all tipped in one day,” Mr Mitchell said.
Esperance CBH zone manager Mick Daw said the hot day had brought harvest forward with crops drying out quicker than expected and had damaged crops.
“It didn’t help at all,” he said.
“The bit of rain we had on Sunday definitely helped to counter that a little bit but the hot day wasn’t what we ordered.”
Meanwhile, the 2010/11 harvest started in Geraldton last Friday when two tonnes of canola were delivered to the CBH’s Geraldton Terminal.
CBH general manager operations Colin Tutt said the Esperance zone was expected to contribute 1.5 million tonnes to the estimated total crop of 5.9 million which would make it WA's second smallest crop in the last 20 years.
"Our five year harvest average is 10 million tonnes," Mr Tutt said.
"At this stage we're looking at taking in just over half this average and we are well behind last season's 11.3 million tonne crop.
"The Esperance zone is shaping up to have a fairly good season with the current estimate falling slightly short of the 1.6 million tonnes the zone received last harvest.”
