Victoria’s first grain harvest: Early crop beats odds

Mallee grain grower Sam Wright’s gamble of planting his barley crop early has paid off. But now the rain has brought harvest to a halt.

Mallee grain grower Sam Wright inspects his barley crop as clouds gather.

Sam Wright’s harvest, of one of Victoria’s first grain crops, came to an abrupt end on Thursday night, after 40mm swept across his Trinita property, halfway between Ouyen and Hattah.

Despite working on his own, Mr Wright still managed to harvest 110ha of the 880ha Mallee block this week before the rain hit, bringing in 320 tonnes of barley.

Sam Wright hopes the rain that stoppeed harvest will not cause his barley crop to get shot and sprung.

His biggest worry now is hoping the rain clears so the remainder of the crop doesn’t get shot and sprung.

The crop was planted early, on April 10, which Mr Wright said prompted some locals to joke it was likely to fail and he’d best “get the hay rake ready”.

But planting early has meant the crop beat the recent frosts, yielding close to three tonnes a hectare, during a season that up until this week’s rain had delivered just 190mm against a district average that tops 300mm.

“If we’d had this (Thursday’s) rain two and a half months ago, we would have been in for one of the best seasons ever,” he said.

Like so many southeast Australian grain growers Mr Wright was hoping for a repeat of the last couple of good seasons.

However a dry winter, which delivered sporadic light rainfall, drained soil moisture reserves, exacerbating recent frosts that gutted yields.

Mallee grain grower Sam Wright rushes to harvest his barley before the rain hits.

Mr Wright’s 630ha lentil crop was smashed by frost, although it has re-flowered, giving him some hope it may yield 100kg to 300kg a hectare, but far less than the tonne a hectare he was hoping for.

His wheat crop has also suffered, despite being planted on April 20.

“I thought (initially) I only had 20 per cent frost damage, but as I’ve gone through rubbing them out (the heads), it’s more like 35-40 per cent,” he said.

“People are saying it’s not as bad as 1982 (drought), but the costs back then were nothing compared to now.”

Mr Wright said a wheat yield of just a tonne a hectare meant “I may as well have stayed in bed”.

He said labour had also been a problem this season, as he struggled to get workers to travel from Mildura or Swan Hill to his properties, forcing him to leave one of his two headers parked, while he tried to strip the crops on his own.

In fact this season Mr Wright said he was forced to lease out one of his blocks due to the lack of labour.