CBH encourages growers to complete Paddock Planner estimates for upcoming harvest

Last year, the co-operative had a reasonable idea of the volume of the crop but didn't understand in detail the different varieties of the various commodities.

As a result, they were caught out in some areas where malt barley and genetically modified (GM) canola segregations ran out of room within two or three days.

This year, it's expected that will be amplified even more given the amount of hectares of canola which are reported to have gone in, as well as the emerging malt barley varieties, such as Maximus, which are starting to take over from older varieties.

CBH chief operations officer Mick Daw said last year some of the people who did the right thing and entered their estimates ended up missing out on being able to deliver to that segregation because the storage was already full.

"Of the hectares planted last year, 80 per cent of them were accounted for in Paddock Planner, however, in some areas that's as low as 60pc and in others it's close to 100pc," Mr Daw said.

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"One of the areas which was on the lower end was closer to Perth, in the Avon Valley, and that was one of the key areas where we came under extreme pressure last year.

"The correlation between segregations closing sooner than wanted and the amount of hectares accounted for in Paddock Planner is obvious."

Paddock Planner gives CBH a precise location of where different commodities and varieties have been planted, meaning the co-operative can be really considerate as to where segregations go and can plan for harvest movements in terms of the logistics task.

"We're busy trying to go through another peak planning process to be prepared for harvest, but there are storages which will already be full and others which will fill up quicker," Mr Daw said.

"We will have to use transport as a lever to try and keep sites alive and the more we know where the grain will be coming from, the more we can plan for trucks and trains.

"We can start to look at harvest shipping and moving canola from somewhere like Avon down to Kwinana and onto a ship, so we can get it out of the system and free up more space for the back end of harvest."

While Mr Daw is aware some growers won't fill out Paddock Planner, he wanted to reassure farmers whatever information they entered was safe and secure.

CBH may elect to share aggregated (non-identifiable) estimate information, for example by zone or commodity, publicly or with trusted third parties where the option of doing so benefits WA growers and the grain industry.

However, CBH does not share any individual grower estimates data with any trader or marketer, including CBH's own Marketing and Trading division, except where a grower has provided permission to do so.

"Some people just won't and we know that, but there are ways we can make it easier and we can do it for them," Mr Daw said.

"It doesn't necessarily have to go into Paddock Planner, as long as we get it into the estimates systems some way, then we know and we can plan."

The process was designed to be as simple and quick as possible.

"There is a little bit of set up time in the first year it's used, but after that it can be filled in within a matter of minutes," Mr Daw said.