SLOW - that is the word that farmers around Western Australia are using to describe their harvest progress so far this season.
With two million tonnes having now been delivered into the CBH network, receivals have been ramping up since harvest officially began on September 23.
However ongoing rainfall has been a nuisance for those who have started, while for those who haven't, it's further delayed them even getting into a header.
CBH chief operations officer Mick Daw said it had been a relatively early, but slow start to harvest, but that receivals significantly picked up last week.
"While recent rainfall events slowed most growers down, we have started to see the pace of deliveries ramp back up, with about 1,423,000t delivered throughout the last week (until Monday morning)," Mr Daw said.
"While harvest is still in its early stages, grower feedback has indicated yields are slightly higher than initially expected in some zones, while others have been affected by weather events.
"Grain quality is generally looking really good for canola and barley, although some zones that were frost-affected have lightweight grain."
Grain has been received across all zones and commodities are in the system, with nearly half of receivals made up of canola.
The majority of sites are expected to open in the next few weeks.
Mr Daw said that although it is an exciting time of year, CBH is encouraging everyone to stay safe.
"With everyone expecting a record harvest, we know that pressures are high to get the crop off quickly and efficiently," he said.
"However, we are encouraging everyone to do the right thing, be patient and stay safe.
"We are working hard to balance the expected pressure on cycle times at larger sites to ensure that we maximise throughput as best we can.
"However, we have a lot of new harvest casuals working onsite so please be friendly and remain patient as they continue to learn and help us safely receive this bumper crop."
Around WA, the Geraldton zone is slowly starting to see receivals pick up with 790,000t delivered so far, including 55 per cent of the canola estimate, 40pc of the barley estimate, 20pc of the lupins estimate and 15pc of the wheat estimate.
All sites are open except Latham and Marchagee, which will open upon requests from growers and reports from farmers are that yields are well above what was expected for all grains, especially barley and wheat.
Mingenew farmer Gary Gosgrove started harvesting almost four weeks ago and is now about 2500 hectares of the way through his 11,000ha program.
"The crops went in early this year because of the way the season panned out, it rained earlier and the crops got going earlier, so they were ready to go," Mr Cosgrove said.
"We've lost nearly two full weeks because of the weather - it's happened twice now that we've got rain on a Monday or Tuesday and haven't been able to get going again until Friday or Saturday.
"Other than the fact that it slows the whole job down, the continual rain does cause you to start to worry about the quality of the grain, particularly in wheat where falling numbers start to become a concern too."
While the worry is there, Mr Cosgrove hasn't had any issues yet, having so far harvested about half of his canola, as well as a bit of wheat and some lupins.
"Other than the weather, things are looking very positive," he said.
"The yields are exceptional, the quality is perfect and the prices are extremely good, so there really isn't much to whinge about other than the weather, which we always do."
Moving to the Kwinana zone, following good harvesting conditions for most of last week, the northern section has picked up with almost 515,000t received in total.
The majority of sites are open across Kwinana north, with the majority of the grain received so far being canola and barley, along with small amounts of oats, lupins and wheat.
Canola quality is very good and barley is also generally good, although some areas of the zone that were frost-affected have lightweight grain.
Wongan Hills grower Brad West said he started harvesting canola about two weeks ago but had been continually held up with the weather.
"There was more rain on Tuesday which stopped us again for a few days, but it's not just the rain that's been an issue, it's also the cold and damp nights that mean we just can't get a good run at it," Mr West said.
"Normally we would be getting towards the end of our canola and we're not even half way yet, we'll make good headway once we can really get going, but there's no way we'll be finishing harvest this year.
"The canola is looking pretty good but unfortunately we did get a frost in the cereals, which was pretty common around this area, however we haven't had the opportunity to harvest any of that yet, so we don't know how bad it is."
Slightly further down the State, the Kwinana south area has received just over 165,000t for the season to date.
Mr Daw said most sites in the zone were open, with the remainder to open within the next week.
"While the areas in the north of the Kwinana south zone have picked up this week with good harvesting conditions, the south of the zone is still a week or two away before they get into the full swing of things," he said.
"We anticipate that cycle times will further decrease over the next week as sites enter the full swing of harvest and all staff are brought onboard."
Most of the grain received so far has been canola and barley, the quality of which is looking very good at this stage with yields slightly higher than initially expected.
Brookton farmer Murray Hall started harvest on Tuesday, which is about a week behind when he normally would have got going.
"The reason for that is due to delayed ripening of crops caused by a softer spring which is a good thing," Mr Hall said.
"The crops are all pretty healthy and we're looking at a decile 9.5 year - there was a localised frost that came through at the beginning of September, but other than that we will be looking at above average yields.
"We've gone into canola first and that will take a good two weeks, after that we have some crop top lupins that we'll need to get off for shedding, then we'll go back to oats, barley and finish on wheat."
With most crops only just ready to harvest, receivals in the Albany zone have mainly been from the Lake Grace and Jerramungup areas with a total of 120,000t received.
All areas in the zone have sites which are open except for area 16, around Cranbrook and Broomehill, which is planning to start opening sites this week.
Majority of the grain received is canola with some feed barley and while the quality has been good, only small tonnages have been received to date.
Farm manager Pieter van Zeyl, based in Green Range, said the crops were still green and they have not started harvest yet.
"We only desiccated our canola last weekend, so we're another week away from starting to harvest that, then we've got some barley which we will try and desiccate next week, which means it'll be harvested two weeks after that, while the wheat is still green," Mr van Zeyl said.
"Usually we try to start by the second week of November, but this year we were underwater for two months, so we'll definitely still be harvesting in January, maybe even February, as we've got some late wheat that we seeded at the end of July that is only flowering now.
"Our canola is terrible and might yield 700 kilograms per hectare, which is about half of what it usually yields, while the barley is probably about 20 to 30pc down and the wheat would be similar, so it's definitely a below-average year for us, all down to the wet."
Harvest took off in the Esperance zone last week, taking the total for the zone to just over 440,000t and seeing the opening of all sites, with the community sample sheds to follow shortly.
Mr Daw said overall, harvest in the zone had been sporadic with a series of fronts, high wind and hail affecting deliveries.
"In pockets throughout the zone, yield has been affected by these weather events, mainly in canola," Mr Daw said.
"But when the weather is favourable, growers are getting good tonnages through the sites."
Grain quality has varied over the zone - canola quality is generally good, barley yields are very good but the majority has been presented as feed, while wheat tonnes are still quite low and protein has been variable so far.
Scaddan grower Tom Curnow said they started harvest on October 11, which is about 10 days earlier than usual, as they had some early canola that was sown on April 2 and was ready to go.
It's been pretty slow so far and it's going to be a long harvest - we've done a block and then waited for the next to be ready, so we're hoping that from now, depending on the weather, we'll be able to start to get a roll on.
"We finished all of our canola about two weeks ago, since then we've been doing field peas and have moved onto some early wheat as well.
"We've had a bit of wind and hail damage on some canola and wheat, but other than that we've been really happy with how the crops have gone this season."
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