FOLLOWING the wet and cool finish to the growing season and significant instances of crop lodging, farmers are looking for an option to bring barley crops into maturation evenly.
Off-label crop-topping has served this purpose in the past in feed barley crops, but increased scrutiny from key export markets and stricter testing at the weighbridge this year means many are unwilling to go down this path.
Instead, farmers are looking at windrowing crop to ripen the crop evenly and to limit losses from falling grain heads.
At a cost of around $30 a hectare, farmers consider it may be worth the cost both in terms of maximising yields and in creating better harvest flow by allowing farmers to target their high value crops first.
The practice is relatively rare in Australia, but does occur every year in some parts, such as South Australias Yorke Peninsula.
Maitland cropper Ben Wundersitz windrows both his malt and feed barley each year and is satisfied it is a sound investment.
We want to make the crop ripen evenly, that is the primary reason for doing it, but there are other advantages, he said.
Frequently if you get windy days near harvest, you see barley grain getting smashed out of the head and windrowing can cut these losses.
Once it is down it is fairly safe and you can worry about harvesting your other crops.
With prices the way they are this year that might mean focusing on your lentil or canola crops that are worth a bit more and then getting back to the barley later, knowing that is not going to be dropping heads on the ground every time there is a bit of wind.
The windrowing process also brings the crop in slightly earlier so it is good for harvest logistics, we can often get going on barley when nothing else is ready.
It is also good in terms of improving the harvestability of the crop. If you have had crop lodging it makes the crop a lot easier to get at.
This year, with lodged crops and high moisture levels meaning regrowth is occurring on barley crops, he said he felt there would be more farmers looking at windrowing barley.
It makes sense on a lot of fronts this year.
In his environment, Mr Wundersitz said windrowing was also a useful weed and pest management tool.
We have issues with snails here and we notice less numbers in the sample in windrowed paddocks, they probably only have the windrow to live in rather than spreading all over the paddock. Ryegrass numbers also come down with windrowing.
In terms of coping with harvest rain, Mr Wundersitz said windrowed barley was susceptible to sprouting, but said it was little different to direct heading.
There is the chance it will shoot if it gets rain on it, but Id sooner have it down than just have the heads getting blown out anyway.
He said he was happy with windrowing as a management strategy, but would also like to see glyphosate registered as a barley desiccant.
It would be good to have that other tool in the shed, and this year, with areas suffering waterlogging, we havent been able to get the windrower onto it yet, so spraying would have been a better option.
Andrew Weidemann, Grain Producers Australia chairman, said he expected barley to be windrowed in non-traditional areas this season.
Speaking to windrowing contractors, they have reported a lot of enquiry from growers about windrowing crops that are normally direct headed such as barley and faba beans.
In both these crops the amount of lodging is going to make direct heading difficult while the regrowth in barley means there are likely to patches of crop that take a long time to be ready so farmers are looking seriously at windrowing.