WA harvest off to record early start
The earliest WA grain deliveries on record were received at Geraldton Port on Tuesday, marking the start of the 2014 harvest season.
Geraldton Port Terminal manager Eric Cooper said the earliest previous grain delivery he could recollect for the zone was on October 3.
"Feedback from farmers indicated an early start to harvest some weeks ago, so we were not that surprised - these deliveries are three weeks ahead of previous early starts," he said.
"Last week's rainfall has pushed some farmers back a week to 10 days on expected harvest dates, but this didn't affect everyone and a few growers are still on track for start dates they were talking about a couple of weeks ago."
Closing rains are expected to have had a positive impact on grain quality but forecasted rains for the weekend could downgrade these expectations.
"At the moment, we think the quality will be fairly good - on the protein side of things it is very early but we think this will again be very similar to last year," Mr Cooper said.
"Farmers who receive more rain from here on in could be affected a little, but there is not a lot on the forecast."
Grower Tristan Stanich has begun harvesting canola on his family's Silversprings property alongside his brother Joel and father Des this week.
"It is a little weird - the 15th of October is when we normally start, so we are a good three or four weeks in front," he said.
A dry August is the centrepoint for the early turn of the season, although unexpected closing rainfall of 30mm two weeks ago renewed the family's hopes of grain fill.
"Crops that didn't look to be anything will actually have some grain in them now, so that will keep the spirits alive a bit and hopefully the crops that were going okay will be a little bit better as well," Mr Stanich said.
His properties are situated in Alma and Ogilvie, where rainfall has been varied with a number of purple patches expected to give yields a boost.
"There is a mixture of good and bad, so we will get out of jail again, a term that has probably been used a lot in this area over the past couple of years" he said.
Ogilvie counterpart Karl Suckling said the early finish could be largely attributed to a hot winter after seeding no earlier than usual.
"Geraldton broke previous August temperature records by two degrees - with all the varieties that are being grown it has speed things up," he said.
"I think it is more the heat than anything why we are harvesting early … we were actually preparing ourselves for pretty poor crops due to the way they had been sped up and we were not sure how much damage had been done and at the moment it is very early days but the damage is no worse than the crops look," he said.
"The unknown was the crop could have had nothing in it because of the hot weather, but the crops seem to have done their thing and a lot quicker.
"The crops look like 800 to 900kg crops and that is what they are yielding and the quality seems okay.
"We will just have to wait and see."
