Rainfall decreases yield but speeds up harvest

Rainfall has been described as random and patchy which has meant lower yields and contracted harvest programs.

The lack of significant summer rainfall in the lead up to seeding and late breaking rains affected when and what was sown and, coupled with the warmer weather, also led to an early start.

Timm House, Gnowangerup

Farming with his family at Gnowangerup, Timm House said they had a horrible start to the season in terms of rainfall, and the lower density crops meant harvest would be finished a lot quicker.

"We are about two thirds of the way through," Mr House said.

"We are flying through it.

"It is one of the fastest, easiest harvests I have ever had."

He said there had been a lot less stress in terms of trucking, with lighter yields making the cartage logistics a lot easier.

"On the downside of that the crops have been a little bit disappointing," Mr House said.

"We were probably only 15 to 20 millimetres away from being very good.

"The quality has been down a little bit and screenings have been an issue, but we have managed to deliver everything around the APW or AH2 grade.

"The weight of the grain has probably been the biggest variation for us, we have had a lot of light grain."

Mr House said they had a horrible start with their second driest May ever.

"We didn't really get a break until the first week of June," he said.

"We had some canola come up 8mm at Easter time.

"Then after that on crops didn't germinate until the first week of June when we got that next rain.

"Then north of Gnowangerup we had 80-100mm overnight and this created serious problems with waterlogging."

He said this led to a bit of chemical damage from crops being dry sown and then having that volume of rain.

The best results came from their early germinating canola and barley.

"Everything is very ripe and ready to go," Mr House said.

"We haven't had any rain since September 14.

"We will hopefully end up with an average yield.

"It has certainly been very easy harvesting, there isn't a lot of bulk in the crops.

"It is going OK and we probably only have about 10 days left.

"I am looking to having an earlier finish, it gives us time to get a few extra jobs completed before Christmas."

Todd Mullan, farms with his family at Dudinin.

He said this year was very different to the past few bumper seasons, however, considering how difficult seasonal conditions had been, this year would most likely provide an average result for their program and an early finish was welcome.

"We are still going and we will probably be finished in a couple of weeks," Mr Mullan said.

"So we will be two or three weeks ahead of where we were last year and that's because we started earlier and there isn't as much grain.

"Last year and the year before were exceptional yields, so we are back to the norm now really."

Mr Mullan said because of the two previous big harvests many people had upgraded their storage or invested in new headers and other machinery and infrastructure, which helped this year's programs.

While he didn't receive any summer rain, significant falls in late March/early April, gave them a really good head start.

"I would say we couldn't have had a better start where we are," Mr Mullan said.

"It was a bit of a dry May, but there was plenty of potential there.

"We haven't started our wheat yet, that will probably be next week, but in our canola and barley, it is a case of they probably look a lot better than what they are - but there is still a far bit of grain there.

"I think just the hot spring conditions and the dry finish ruined a lot of the potential."

Mr Mullan said while yields were down, the quality wasn't.

"The quality has been just as good as usual," he said.

"We are very lucky, the earlier start has taken a bit of the pressure off as well."

WITH three generations onfarm at Mt Barker, Iain Mackie said they were hopeful to be finished harvest by Christmas.

He said sitting in the cab meant he wasn't at the cricket spending money.

"We have completed about a third of our harvest so far," Mr Mackie said.

"We are just under halfway through our canola and haven't started our wheat yet.

"Unfortunately the area where we have our wheat got about 46mm or rain about 10 days ago, in 24 hours.

"This was probably a case of mixed blessings in terms of the wheat, some were still green and some had gone off, so it is unknown whether this has affected our quality as of yet."

He said they changed to a long-season wheat variety that has better characteristics for the South Coast.

"We are pleasantly surprised that we are only about 10-20 per cent below our long-term average for our canola yield," Mr Mackie said.

"But the results are very variable across the landscape."

This week he transitioned from an area with no yield that in the space of 40 metres yielded up to 2.5t/ha.

"Our fence-to-fence average is probably down around 10-15pc, but it varies wildly."

Mr Mackie said waterlogging had contributed to the variability.

"The quality of the canola is still very good with oil content sitting up around 47pc which is where we normally seek our oil content to be.

"This is the earliest we have ever started harvest by about three to four days and we are hoping we will finish early also, ideally in December.

Hamish Jannings, agronomist

South Coastal Agencies agronomist, Hamish Jannings, Esperance, said with harvest close to wrapping up for their northern areas and travelling along well for the coastal areas, the season was panning out to be an average one for most.

While for many they would have liked to see better yields, Mr Jannings said the quicker harvest would allow growers time to catch up on jobs they have been too busy to finish before Christmas.

"Esperance has low, medium and high rainfall zones within the district," Mr Jannings said.

"As an average they had a pretty wet June, but seeding was quite dry and the finish to seeding was also quite dry and quite hot in that critical grain filling period.

"That has resulted in crops that had large potential biomass, not filling and not reaching yield potential."

He said after speaking with growers and other people across the Great Southern, they had the same issues as many of the growers in the Esperance region.

Mr Jannings said these issues included small canola, in terms of grain size, which was reflected in a reduction in yield.

"Cereals have been pretty similar also with a lot of screenings, low test weights and high protein across the board," he said.

"I would say this has resulted in an average year across the district with some sub average in the lower rainfall zones."

Many growers will be finished by the end of this week, with not a lot of crop left in the northern regions.

"The coastal areas are a little behind this due to the bit of weather that came in earlier this week," Mr Jannings said.

"But they will be on the backend of their programs, if not closing in on the end."