Harvest kicks off!

We started windrowing some barley a few weeks ago. Due to the dry season the barley crops are much shorter than usual so, we have been windrowing the taller barley crops & will reap the shorter crops standing. The windrowing accelerates the ripening process & enables us to harvest for longer hours with less downtime, combating the effects of high moisture in the grain from our coastal environment. The lentil crop is only just ripe but we will shift to lentils asap as they very fragile. The lentil crops are also very thin this year & therefore are prone to shaking the pods off in the wind so we aim to get them off as soon as possible.

Locally our season has been very dry with the annual rainfall around 40% below average. Areas on the east coast of the peninsula have received around 6 inches (150mm) of rain through to 12 inches (300mm) at Maitland. In some areas this is less rainfall than the drought years of 1982, 1977 & 1959. Unfortunately this year some of the cropping areas in the state have only had 4 inches of rain. Remarkably some of these paddocks will go through to produce a grain crop, whilst some will already have chosen to cut the crop for hay production or use them to feed livestock. Australian farmers have pioneered the development of highly efficient farming systems which have dramatically improved our ability to produce grain in our low rainfall environment.

Certainly a very tough season for many farmers & rural communities across many areas in Australia. A good time to look out friends & neighbours.

Safe harvesting.

Harvest 2018 is done & dusted 😃

After eight huge weeks this year’s harvest has finally wrapped up. After a very dry year mother nature certainly turned on some wild weather. Locally the crop was belted by a weather event nearly every week with 70 kph winds & around 75 mm of rain falling over the past few months.Thankfully the crop stood up well in the wind & the grain quality has been excellent. Many of the wheat crops away from the coast were heavily impacted by frost but overall the harvest was pretty good. The stop, start harvest has certainly been very frustrating with farmers, carriers & bulk handlers all trying to manage their workload & staff.

In 2018 the growing season rainfall was lower than the drought in 1982 where very little grain was produced at all. Thankfully our industry continues to drive innovation in our farming systems to enable sustainable production of grain in our highly variable climate.

Thank you to our staff members who have hung in there & put in a huge effort to get the harvest done.

Best of luck for those still in the paddocks,safe harvesting 👍