Harvesting farmers frustrated by rain delays but yields are looking good

Earlier this year Georgina Warne, Culgoa, said a good amount of water received in 2022 was still in subsoil and a timely summer spraying program would hopefully garner good results.

Now at the other end of the year, she said the lentils, wheat, canola and barley that she harvested were yielding better than it had looked.

"It was a wonderful surprise," she said.

"The test weight in our wheat and barley was about 15 per cent better than last year which is where the yield increases came from."

She said she was lucky to get about 50 millimetres of rain five weeks prior from harvest, but further rains became a "really frustrating" later on.

"The first bit of rain was fun, because we went to the pub during it," she said.

"The second and third rains were sending us a bit crazy though and there were ten days here in Culgoa where we only harvested for five hours.

"That did really kill the momentum a bit."

A forecast of 80-100mm last week prompted Ms Warne to get contractors on her farm to finish her harvest and avoid dragging it out any longer.

It also paid off in terms of the quality of her crops, with her lentils and barley coming out "perfect" and receival sites working hard to keep space for grain.

"Surprisingly the protein on the wheat was very low, despite a fair bit of urea being applied to the crops, but that is the story across the Mallee really," she said.

"All the receival sites did a fantastic job in creating more space because yields exceeded expectations so the sites where we were delivering the grain were looking to be full up."

"They called in earth-moving companies from around the place and built more capacity, which was fantastic"

Hugh Macague, Rochester, is currently three quarters through his harvesting on his property, which is growing canola, faba beans, wheat, barley, field peas and hay oats.

He said he had hoped to be a bit further along than where he was, but results from what he has harvested looking promising with his canola growing season being "unreal" .

"We weren't sure what to expect because it got dry during the spring, [but] we got rain right at the right time," he said.

"We've been fortunate not to get too much rain up until this point, [and] you don't have to go too far to find farms with 80mm of rain already and hail wiping out wheat paddocks which is uncommon around here."

He said he was "extremely fortunate" to only have misty rain delays rather than any weather that would be damaging.

Finding workers for harvest had also been a challenge for Mr Macague, but once again, fortune came into play.

"It's been a bit of a drama to get staff, and skilled staff for that matter," he said.

"We were fortunate to run into a bloke earlier this year who was really switched on and now is working full time for us, but that was really by chance."