THE 11,000 hectare harvest program at the A O’Meehan property at Borden should be finished before Christmas, weather permitting.
Cropping manager Martin Brooks said last week they were 75 per cent of the way through on what had generally been a pretty good result considering the late start.
This year’s program was made up of 4000ha of wheat, 2600ha of barley, 1600ha of canola, 1600ha of lupins, 500ha of Casper peas and 220ha of ryegrass for fodder.
Martin said yields were down as expected but with prices high there wasn’t too much to complain about.
“The lupins went 1t/ha, peas also went 1t/ha, canola was about 830kg/ha, barley went 2.8t/ha and wheat will be around 2.5t/ha,” he said.
Martin said wheat varieties used included Calingiri, Mace and Scepter, while all the barley was Rosalind with the canola a mix of Stingray and Bonito.
“I would describe the season as a good average one,” he said.
“It was a bit up and down, we got touched up by frost and then had a dry September so the combination of both those certainly impacted yields.
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“We are down on our five-year average, with canola way down and wheat probably 0.5t down on average.”
Martin said given the late start they made the decision to drop 500-600ha of canola out of the program and went with more barley.
“All our barley goes into the feedlot to feed cattle that supply the Stirling Range beef label,” he said.
“Barley outyielded everything and we had good plump grains, so it will be ideal for feeding cattle.
“This is the second year we have used Scepter and the quality is good, but protein is down a bit.
“Stingray probably fared the best out of our canola and the Calingiri Noodle wheat went alright also.”
