THE curtain has fallen on the 2015 harvest, with Viterra receiving minimal deliveries at SA sites this week.
About 51,000 tonnes of grain was received in the past month, taking the state’s total past 5.86 million tonnes.
Viterra operations general manager Tim Krause said the final figure was in line with expectations after the dry spring. “Receivals were higher the past few years, but it’s still an average year,” he said.
November was again the biggest month, accepting about 70 per cent of the receivals, while Wallaroo was the largest receival site, taking in more than 500,000t.
“Also of note was the performance of eastern EP sites, in particular Arno Bay, Lock, Kielpa, Cummins and Tumby Bay, which all broke receival records,” he said.
“Some eastern EP growers would have had some of their best yields on record.”
From October to December, Viterra shipped 1.3mt, mainly to the Middle East and SE Asia, while 3.5mt was booked up until September.
Grain Producers SA chief executive officer Darren Arney said despite the “average” harvest, it was a season of extremes across the state.
“Some areas of the state didn’t receive rain all year, like near Streaky Bay and in the South East,” he said.
“The poor spring was reminiscent of 2007, and had a big affect on production.
“But despite this, a lot of crops were quite resilient, highlighting how much farming systems have improved in the past 15 years.”
Grain quality was mixed though, particularly barley and pulses.
“There was a reasonable swing out of canola into barley last year because of good prices,” Mr Arney said. “But it may swing back the other way this year because of poor barley results, or into lentils because of the high prices.”
Wheat had also lost its shine, with futures prices at historic lows. “The drop in the Australian dollar has buffered the price drop, but last year we went into seeding with APW wheat at $300/t – at the moment it’s $260/t,” Mr Arney said.
But confidence in the 2016 season had lifted with recent summer rainfall.
Mallee farmer Clinton Scholz said he had up to 55 millimetres of rainfall this year at Taplan near Loxton.
“We were also lucky to record an above average season in 2015, with rain falling at the right time,” he said.
“Being a mixed operation, we also had minimal frost issues, but we did get hit by the hot weather during the October long weekend. But harvest was still solid, with few hold-ups.”
