DESPITE dry conditions experienced across most of Western Australia for the 2019 growing season, yields for the Edwards family's harvest, 30 kilometres east of Geraldton went reasonably well.
Their canola crops had a final average of 1.2 tonnes per hectare, with wheat averaging 2.7t/ha across harvest that finished on December 1.
Jack Edwards, who works at the Graze and Grow operation with his parents Aaron and Fiona Edwards and grandfather Barry, said it wasn't a bad result considering how the season panned out.
Farm Weekly recently caught up with Jack and Aaron to review harvest that started on October 15, a couple of weeks earlier than normal.
Jack was busy on the header with Aaron in charge of chaser bin duties.
Jack said they started direct heading about 200ha of canola before there were areas where the stalks were too green, so they moved onto about 600ha of wheat that in some areas, yielded up to 3t/ha.
"We were fairly pleased with that," Jack said.
"We thought from looking it may have been more, but we were very happy to take that."
Like many areas, the hard finish to the growing season was the reason for the earlier start.
"We haven't had rain in a fair while now and things finished up very quickly and that is what led us to the earlier starts," Jack said.
"The wheat was good to go within a week of us starting on the canola, but we usually like to get our canola in the bin first because it is a lot more prone to wind damage when we direct head it.
"Geraldton is a very windy place and there is always a lot of wind around this time of year, so we like to go pretty hard with our canola."
Jack said they planted 2000ha this year, going with their full program, made up with 700ha of canola with the rest being an equal split between Sceptre and Mace wheat, along with a small 20ha pocket of new varieties of Havoc and Devil they are trialing.
"We are hoping that one of these varieties can start to replace Mace," Jack said.
"And it seems to have come along pretty nicely.
"We have grown Mace for the past 10 years and have run Sceptre for the past three to four years and had some good results from it.
"Obviously that was in a big year with decent protein, so this year we went half-and-half with Mace and Sceptre."
Prior to using Mace, Jack said their go-to varieties had included Carnamah, Bonnie Rock and Wyalkatchem.
"Sceptre is a really good variety, it is really good for these conditions," Jack said.
"It handles these dry conditions really well and in the really big years it seems to handle those well too."
The breaking rains for the season fell late, on June 6, and by then they had already put their full program in dry.
"We started seeding on April 28 - we usually work on starting around Anzac Day and if there is no rain in sight, we just keep pushing on with the program.
"That is how we have run things in the past 10 to 15 years, we just do it dry and if there is no rain in sight...we just hope that it comes."
When the rain did break Jack said it was a solid start and from there they received 300 millimetres for the growing season, down on the average of between 350mm and 440mm.
"The canola is 43Y23 and this is probably our sixth season of GM canola now - we used to run the old TT but this is so easy with spraying, it just grows good and it's tough in these conditions," Jack said.
"We have been running 43Y23 for a good three to four years and it has been one of the best yielders we have found.
"Oil (content) is not as good as some of the others, but we go for yields."
Jack said they were running at about 42pc oil content in their canola and had been trialling 43Y29 which was also going well.
He said most farmers in the Mid West area were using GM canola varieties.
"It makes our spraying programs so much easier and the paddocks are nice and clean," he said.
Jack said there wasn't a lot of variation in their annual program.
"We have been big believers, in the area that we are, that we will get that seasonal rain, so the same program goes in," he said.
The only variation was about an extra 200ha of canola.
When reflecting on the 2018 season Jack said they received rainfall up until the last month of the growing period and as the crops were finishing, it dried up.
"That did tweak our yield a little and brought a few more screenings into the wheat, but last year was definitely above-average and we had very good rainfall last year," he said.
"The overall average with canola last year was 3t/ha and 5.5t/ha with wheat."
Harvest has all but finished in Western Australia for 2019, with 9.496 million tonnes delivered to the CBH network by Monday morning.
This is well down on the 2018-19 total of 16.4mt and the 2016-17 record of 16.616mt.
CBH reported that some areas of the Albany and Kwinana South zones were still receiving good tonnages, but the majority of sites across the network were closing.
The Geraldton, Esperance and Kwinana North zones have effectively finished harvest, with some key sites open to collect the remaining deliveries which will trickle in over the next couple of weeks.
CBH general manager Operations Ben Macnamara thanked growers and staff for their efforts.
"I want to acknowledge the growers who delivered safely to site through the season and embraced the new technologies we've implemented," Mr Macnamara said.
Albany had received the most grain with 2.629mt delivered by Monday, ahead of Kwinana South at 2.1mt, Kwinana North 1.894mt, Esperance 1.617mt and Geraldton 1.256mt.
Deliveries slowed at the end of last week in the Albany zone due to harvest bans in place followed by rain in some areas.
The eastern part of the zone has all but finished with plans to start closing sites this week.
The western part of the zone is still receiving some good tonnages.
The zone has had a mixed season, with growers in the eastern areas generally below average, and growers to the west experiencing improved quality and yields.
Dry weather in the lead up to Christmas will see most growers able to finish before the end of the year.
Most sites in the Kwinana North zone were now closed, or soon to be closed for the season.
The season has been generally below average for the majority of the zone with quality up and down, depending on the area.
In the Kwinana South zone, most of the smaller sites are now closed or will be closing this week.
The majority of country sites in the Esperance zone are now closed, with the remaining tonnes being delivered to the Esperance terminal.
Harvesting conditions have remained excellent, allowing growers to get through their programs with minimal interruptions.
In the Geraldton zone all but three sites were closed with the remaining tonnes coming in quickly.