WHILE many farmers across WA will be able to relax over the Christmas and New Year period with harvest out of the way, there are still growers that will only take a short break before hopping back on the header to finish off their programs.
Up until last Wednesday, there had been more than 14.3 million tonnes of grain delivered to the CBH network with the Geraldton zone’s harvest all but over with 3,148,700 tonnes received up until the middle of last week.
To the same time, the Kwinana zone had delivered 7,046,900t, the Albany zone was sitting at 2,090,300t and Esperance deliveries were at 2,047,300t.
In southern zones there was a real mix of progress, with some farmers well and truly finished and others not even started on their wheat yet.
At Nyabing, Scott Crosby said he was still attempting to finish harvest with moisture issues causing delays last week.
“We had a bit of South Coast drizzle that ground us to a halt for two days last week and that set us back a bit,” he said.
“We still have 500 hectares to go and across the district there is still a substantial amount of crop to come off.
“Some people haven’t started their wheat yet, so headers will still be rolling well into the new year around here.”
Mr Crosby said a dry September and the frost had taken a toll on yields, but a kind October and a mild finish in November had meant things were not as bad as they could have been.
“There are some paddocks that are not yielding where we thought they would be and others, such as the frosted country, are actually better than expected,” he said.
“A lot of the barley is better than we thought and most of it is going Malt with high yields and good grain size.”
All in all, Mr Crosby said it had been a positive season.
“Grain prices have certainly helped, while barley is back a bit, wheat is going extremely well,” he said.
“If anybody hasn’t marketed all of their wheat yet they are going to get very good gains at the moment.”
Katanning farmer Kallum Blake finished harvest on December 14 and was glad he did with weather last week holding up proceedings for those still going.
“I spent last week trucking off the last of the wheat and we have a bit of barley still in silos to clean up and we will be done for harvest 2018,” he said.
Mr Blake said he could only describe this year’s result as “pretty ordinary”.
“It was well and truly below average and probably 30-40 per cent down on our long-term average,” he said.
“The barley was the best and was only 20pc down but wheat, oats and lupins weren’t great.
“We had frost damage, which wasn’t as bad as we thought in the barley but the oats and lupins were hit pretty hard.
“There was one oat crop near the house and you could literally see the damage being done, the crop just turned white across the whole paddock.”
Mr Blake said the one shining light was the price of grain, but “you still have to yield it to take advantage of those prices”.
This year the Blakes harvested 440ha of crop, which was slightly down on other years but they had upped sheep numbers.
Hyden farmer Dean Baker finished his harvest last week, just before a couple days of rain.
“It went alright this year, we can’t complain given we were hit by that big frost,” Mr Baker said.
“The crops were better than what we thought and the barley yielded between 2-3 tonnes a hectare, which was up on what we thought it would be.
“Quality was also good with most of it going Malt.”
Cascade farmer John Carmody wrapped up harvest two weeks ago and was busy setting up the boomspray when Farm Weekly spoke to him last week.
He said this year’s harvest was outstanding considering they only received 123mm for the growing season.
“Our canola was disappointing but our barley and wheat yields were pretty good considering that rainfall,” he said.
“The barley yielded in the mid-two tonne range and wheat was just over three tonnes a hectare.
“We certainly didn’t think we would get anywhere near those sort of yields given the amount of rain we had.
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“Once we got the headers into the crop they certainly went a lot better than we thought they would.”
Mr Carmody said technology available these days certainly helps maximise grain yield.
“We were really onto the summer spraying and were able to conserve any moisture that was there and that helped,” he said.
“We are also using controlled traffic and I think this has been a benefit for our cropping program.”
This year the Carmodys grew La Trobe barley and Scepter wheat, with a small amount of Planet barley trialled.
“The Planet didn’t perform as well as the La Trobe but we have decided we will plant some more next year and give it a chance to see how it goes,” he said.
Current grain prices are also pleasing at the moment.
“Prices are outstanding,” Mr Carmody said.
“It is not often you get a reasonable amount of tonnes and prices like this at the same time so we are making the most of it while it is there.”