Vic harvest to continue through February

The Victorian harvest is set to continue through February with the majority of NSW yet to commence.

No state has been spared from a painstakingly slow 2022-23 harvest as delivered totals edge higher in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

In NSW, NSW Farmers grains committee chair Justin Everitt said last weekend’s rain would further delay an already late harvest.

“We should be going now, but we’re getting weekly rain events and it is just adding weeks and weeks to a harvest start date,” he said.

“Everyone is trying to have a bit of a crack and is getting bogged. Some people in the north (Moree area) have started.”

In its FY22 report delivered on Wednesday, GrainCorp said 1.1 million tonnes of grain had been delivered to date to its sites in Queensland and northern NSW — under half the 2.5 million tonnes that had been delivered by this time last year. About 600,000 tonnes of grain had been exported.

GrainCorp managing director Robert Spurway said the company was expecting yield losses, widespread quality downgrades and an extended harvest as a result of the wet weather, but there would still be a large volume of crop.

In Victoria, Grain Producers Australia southern region director Andrew Weidemann said harvest for crops such as canola would still be going in February.

Harvest in Victoria will be set back months, with some farmers expected to still be working in February Picture: Zoe Phillips

Western Australia’s CBH Group announced on Monday more than 10 per cent of this year’s expected crop had been delivered to silos, while Viterra in South Australia hit 5 per cent of its harvest total.

CBH Group chief operations officer Mick Daw said growers in the west had temporarily paused their harvesting plans to wait for crops to dry out after widespread rain, giving the company a chance to clear some its stored grain from last season’s record crop.

“While recent rainfall events have slowed most growers down, the CBH team has been using this time effectively and working hard to clear out as much carry as we can to port to allow us to increase up-country storage capacity,” he said.

Across the state 2.4 million tonnes have now been delivered — just part of an expected 23 million-tonne harvest.

In South Australia, where growers were hit with heavy rain and hail this week, Viterra reported a total of 370,411 tonnes of grain had been delivered into its network — about five per cent of this year’s expected harvest in the state.