MORE than one million tonnes of grain has been delivered to CBH Group network since the first receival was made on October 7.
Receivals are ramping up and grain has been received across all zones, with most sites expected to open by the end of the week.
CBH chief operations officer Ben Macnamara said it had been a relatively early but slow start to harvest, with receivals picking up significantly last week.
"We've started to see the pace of deliveries increase over the past few days, with about 900,000 tonnes delivered throughout last week," Mr Macnamara said.
"All commodities are now in the system, with more than half of our receivals made up of barley.
"While harvest is still in its early stages, grower feedback has indicated yields are faring slightly better than expected and grain quality will become clearer over the next few weeks."
The Geraldton zone was the first to receive grain across the network, with 50t of canola delivered to Moonyoonooka from the Yuna area.
The zone has been unusual this year, with canola coming online first, followed by barley and wheat, while lupins are also being delivered when weather permits.
With all four grades being delivered at the same time, some site cycle times are being affected at larger sites.
The majority of tonnes have been delivered into the Geraldton terminal, Mingenew, Carnamah and Moonyoonooka.
Harvest started in the Kwinana North zone with a load of canola delivered at McLevie on October 12 and most sites within the zone are now open.
The majority of deliveries have been canola and barley, with a small amount of wheat delivered last week.
Wheat and canola quality has been good so far, while most barley has been graded feed due to high screenings and low protein.
The majority of tonnes have been delivered to McLevie, Kalannie, Konnongorring, Koorda and Merredin.
It has been a season when at times the wheels have threatened to fall off but as farmers have jumped into their headers to start harvest, the big topic in pubs, clubs and social media has been the surprising crop yields.
That was the case at Kalannie last week where brothers Alan and Vic Dodd were taking off a crop of Buff feed barley.
"It's going 2.8 tonnes (a hectare) which is a lot better than we expected and prices for feed barley have rallied a bit, so it's a positive from where prices were a few months ago," Vic Dodd said.
"With the wheat I think we are in for surprises on both sides of the ledger with the crops that went white early finishing with moisture stress so we'll definitely have quality issues there.
"But the crops on the lighter type country that ripened slower we think the quality and yield will be OK as they changed colour slowly in what has generally been a soft finish for us with no frost.
The Dodds are well into their 5500 hectare program and were hoping to get a good run last week before the rain on Saturday.
"Even the canola has gone 1.42t/ha in a year when we got just five millimetres in September.
"Most of the crops are sucking on that February rain, we got 100mm in February and 25mm in March and that has got us over the line."
In Kwinana South, the first delivery was also on October 12 with a good quality canola receival at Kellerberrin.
Deliveries are slowly ramping up, with the eastern part of the zone accounting for most receivals and the majority of tonnes received at Kellerberrin, Tammin and Cunderdin.
The largest portion of receivals has been barley and at this early stage there is a split of feed and malt.
Lake Grace was the first receival site in the Albany zone to get a delivery, with a load of barley being dropped off on October 16.
The majority of grain being delivered into northern parts of the zone, with Hyden and Newdegate taking the majority of tonnes and most sites expected to be open by the end of the week.
Barley deliveries are making up the majority of receivals and while it is too early to comment on quality across commodities, there is a mixture of both malt and feed deliveries so far.
Harvest began in the Esperance zone on October 9 after a delivery of canola to the Chadwick receival site.
Receivals to date have been predominantly barley and canola, with a small amount of wheat and pulses starting to come into the system.
Chadwick and Munglinup have received the most grain within the zone and the majority of the sites are open.
Mr Macnamara said the wet conditions last weekend would likely have slowed deliveries this week.
"Showers and thunderstorms passed through large parts of the grainbelt over the weekend, which will have an impact on deliveries," Mr Macnamara said.
"We'd encourage growers to set-up notification preferences for their favourite sites within the CDF app to stay updated on the latest site information, including site opening times, segregations and weather impacts."
