Wet weather slows harvest

Wet weather continues to stall harvest in western Victoria, in stark contrast to northern NSW and South Australia where harvest finished early.

While farmers in northern NSW and South Australia celebrated an early harvest, there are parts of Victoria with crops still standing.

Record summer rain means some crops are still too wet to strip, and headers are likely to become bogged.

GrainCorp head of national operations Jason Shanley said harvest activity was still trickling along mostly in Nhill, Murtoa and other areas of the Wimmera, and Berrybank and Westmere in the Western Districts.

“Recent wet weather has delayed the finish but we’re expecting activity to wind up within the next fortnight,” he said.

GrainCorp’s Victoria network has taken in more than 4.2 million tonnes of grain, which is another exceptionally strong year for the network.

Several sites have also had their best ever season, with records falling at Elmore, Murchison East, Mitiamo, Quambatook, Rainbow, Speed, Warracknabeal and Nhill.

“Our southern Mallee and Wimmera cluster of sites have also received the most grain ever this season,” Mr Shanley said.

Farmer and agronomist with Nutrien at Kaniva, Josh Merrett, said it had been a frustrating harvest.

“You would work a few days then have another week off (because of rain),” he said.

Kaniva received 117mm of rain in November, 81.4mm in December, and so far for January, 20.2mm has fallen.

“We still have paddocks where farmers are getting bogged,” he said.

Grains and cropping farmer at Tarranyurk, Marshall Rodda said there were still people completing harvest. Picture: Zoe Phillips

For those who sold wheat back in November, prices were looking better. However, there has been a drop of up to $30 a tonne since then.

Wheat is currently trending at $358/tonne, canola at $597/tonne, and nugget lentils at $955/tonne.

The decline in returns has also combined with more crops being downgraded due to summer rain.

Marshall Rodda of Tarranyurk said there were still some headers in the paddock in his region, but most had finished.

He said late summer rainfall had delayed the harvest of all crops, including wheat, barley and peas.

“There were some field peas and wheat and barley around here that still had to be harvested after the rain came,” he said.

For other farmers in the district, they were fortunate to complete harvest before Christmas.

“I finished in December with only a small harvest, but that wasn’t the case for everyone,” he said.

“We are hearing of headers getting bogged, and some people are just having to walk away from harvest and wait.”

Mr Rodda said the harvest was a repeat of wet conditions experienced during 2022-2023.

Having completed 60 harvests, Mr Rodda said this last one would be remembered as challenging.

In addition to stripping the crop, he said it was a juggling act to control summer weeds germinating after the rain.

“We have to jump on to weed control straight away,” he said.