LOCAL agronomists are predicting harvest will begin mid-November in the Jamestown region – slightly later than previous years due to cool spring conditions and high September rainfall.
Kerin Landmark Rural senior agronomist Steve Richmond said the season was progressing well, with good spring rainfall – something the area hadn’t received for a number of years – while hot, dry and windy days had been minimal.
Mr Richmond said mild conditions during spring had promoted grain fill, which leads to more grains filling, higher test weights and low screenings.
Wheat and barley are either at the flowering stage or going into early grain fill, while canola is late in flowering.
Peas, beans, vetch, lupins and lentils are at mid to late flowering, or are in early pod development.
Mr Richmond said some crops in the Hornsdale region had received significant hail damage from the super storm in late September, and had lodged, which would make windrowing and hay cutting challenging.
“Rather than going up and back, or round and round, farmers may only be able to approach crops from one direction,” he said.
Mr Richmond said this would slow up harvest.
The Jamestown Post Office recorded 485mm of growing season rainfall between April and September, and 41mm in October.
Mr Richmond said the area had sufficient soil moisture reserves to finish the crop.
He said potential yield limitations could be frost at flowering or a heavy frost during grain fill, or a hot, dry, windy day during grain fill.
Mr Richmond said Russian wheat aphid had been active in the area, particularly on fence lines with barley grass.
Rain had resulted in a significant reduction in RWA numbers, he said, but affected crops should still be monitored for recovery rates.
“We are still learning; though this big rain event has had a big effect on numbers, the smaller rains earlier in the month had only a small or no effect,” he said.
Mr Richmond said crops had been treated but diseases were still showing up, including leaf rust and septoria in wheat, barley leaf scald in barley, ascochyta and chocolate spot in beans and vetch, ascochyta and grey mould in lentils, and ascochyta in lupins.
Elders Jamestown senior agronomist Darren Pech was optimistic, after one of the Mid North’s wettest seasons in the past 25 years.
He said harvesters were going in some areas this time last year, but farmers were at least three weeks away from starting, and most people would not finish harvest by Christmas.
He said it had been difficult to keep disease out of pulses and RWA had affected some crops, but weather conditions had been ideal for grain fill. It had not been ideal for haymakers though, with the weather not dry enough to bale, and some mild weather was needed to let crops fill and ripen.
