CBH Group Geraldton and Kwinana North zone bins filling up quick

Last Friday, the Grain Industry Association of WA (GIWA) updated its prediction for the 2022-23 harvest to 24.74 million tonnes and while not all of that will be delivered to CBH, the co-operative is still expected to store more than its 21.3mt record last year.

Given the 3.5mt carry-over from last season, it leaves the question open as to where the grain is going to go if too many sites fill and close?

CBH maintains it won't be an issue, with chief operations officer Mick Daw saying they were working to ensure they maintained services for growers as the pace of harvest builds.

"Most services are still open at the sites that have not closed and while some of our smaller sites across the State are starting to fill and close, we are working to ensure we can keep our larger sites open," Mr Daw said.

"This includes putting more capacity on, easing pressure by building more temporary storage and supporting the larger sites with rail."

CBH built more than 1.4mt of temporary storage this year, in addition to last year's 2.4mt and is continuing to build more in required locations.

However, as a result of more favourable harvesting conditions in northern parts, daily records have been broken each week in each of the Geraldton and Kwinana zones.

This pace and volume was highlighted when CBH broke the daily State record on December 2 after receiving more than 600,000t in one day.

Mingenew farmer Geoff Cosgrove still has wheat and lupins to harvest and said the sites were filling faster every day.

"Up this way, where there is still quite a lot of grain standing, there are a lot of full bins," Mr Cosgrove said.

"Arrino only has a little bit of space left, Mingenew is basically full and Morawa was down to less than 20,000t of space, but they are trying to build more storage at the latter two to accommodate.

"With the sites filling up, there are not as many grids running and there are still a lot of people harvesting, so they're all trying to pour their grain down three or four grids rather than the 10 or 11 they usually have and cycle times are slower because of it."

While Mr Cosgrove isn't expecting to wrap up until after Christmas, some growers in the Geraldton zone were starting to finish.

A lot of others in the rest of the State are finalising canola deliveries and will start to move over to wheat and barley.

Mr Daw said many growers were experiencing higher than expected yields, which - while a great outcome - was placing pressure on some of the sites.

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"Some sites in the Geraldton and Kwinana North zone are experiencing more pressure, but we are doing everything we can to put more capacity on and ease pressure by adding additional temporary storage and supporting those sites with rail.

"We haven't seen the same volume and pace in the southern part of the State due to unfavourable weather conditions."

CBH has had rail operating at a higher level than this time last year, to support network sites.

It also executed grain bagging at Kellerberrin (20,000t), Kalannie (20,000t) and Marchagee (8000t), through Landpoint Holdings.

"We are exploring other areas where this may be a suitable option to help manage the pressure at sites," Mr Daw said.

"We are also offering post-harvest delivery options for growers that use onfarm storage and then deliver into the system once they have finished harvest."

For his part, Mr Cosgrove wasn't too concerned as normally it came down to CBH and local governments finding an area to stack excess grain.

"Most of the country (shire) councillors are fairly sympathetic to wanting to get the harvest done, so one way or another it tends to happen," he said.