Season of contrasts in SE

According to the PIRSA Crop and Pasture Report, the Upper SE is expected to produce 333,150 tonnes from a cropping area of 233,900 hectares. In the Lower SE, the estimated production is 154,350t from 70,300ha.

Landmark senior agronomist and key account manager Craig Hole said some clients finished two weeks before Christmas.

"That has never happened before, it has been a very early harvest," he said.

Mr Hole said results were a mixed bag, with yields "all over the place".

"We have some thunderstorms come through this area late in the season, and anyone who copped some of those falls ended up with quite good yields," he said.

"But, outside of those areas that managed to get those late thunderstorms, yields were quite disappointing.

"That late 20 millimetres of rainfall in some areas really proved their worth."

Mr Hole said yields in areas that received late thunderstorms were generally about 4 tonnes to the hectare for wheat and 2t/ha for canola.

"But outside of the areas that received thunderstorms, you could virtually drop a tonne per hectare off the yields," he said.

Frost was also an issue in the 2014-15 season.

"We had a couple of late frosts that did more damage than anyone thought they would at the time," he said.

Many croppers had finished harvest by Christmas but Mr Hole said some were still going into the new year.

"The bigger operators were still going into the new year around Millicent," he said.

"That area got really wet, so it was quite late, especially compared to Naracoorte, which was extremely early."

Canola was one of the worst performers in SA, and it was no different in the SE.

"It didn't go too bad, but any area with a tight finish generally had canola with low oil content," Mr Hole said.

"Wheat quality was reasonable, with a percentage going to H2."

Later-season wheat generally struggled with the dry spring, with a lot of those crops cut for hay.

Mr Hole said it would be interesting to see how much lucerne was harvested in the SE this year, with a lot of the crop used for grazing or hay when spring feed supplies were tight.

He said dryland clover crops also struggled during the dry spring.