Crops better than expected for Stewarton farmer despite challenging harvest conditions
Early harvest indications show crops have held up better than initially expected after a dry year. But now intermittent rainfall slows harvest.
Fifth generation Stewarton cropping farmer Stuart Feldtmann is harvesting crops in cool “stop-start” conditions after late-season rainfall arrived in November.
For the calendar year the crops grown by Stuart and his wife Michelle have received 295mm to the end of November, compared with an average annual rainfall of 550mm, leaving a deficit of 255mm, or around 46 per cent below average – with December still to come.
And while the bulk of the growing season months were relatively dry, rainfall in November tallied 50mm, helping to ease soil moisture deficits and give crops a boost heading into the final stages of harvest.
In the past week he had been harvesting his canola and said harvest had stopped after intermittent falls of 15mm of rain.
Despite the dry season, and cool conditions at harvest, he said crops were performing better than might have been expected, with plants looking healthy and reasonably uniform across most paddocks.
It was early days for harvest with the Clearfield 44Y94 showing some reasonably positive signs, and the canola harvest was about 60 per cent of the way through.
He was hoping to start on faba beans on Tuesday afternoon.
Faba beans account for 15 per cent of the cropping area. Then he would move onto wheat. It was hoped to have harvest finished before Christmas, barring any further delays from wet weather.
Stuart said overall conditions in November had been mild, with daytime temperatures ranging from as low as 18C up to 25C and 27C on warmer days.
He said overall it was too early to be drawn on yields, but crops were doing “a little better than expected for the rain we have had,” giving him cautious optimism for the rest of harvest.
