RAIN late last year has put a dampener on the end of Kangaroo Island’s harvest.
Landmark Kingscote agronomist Daniel Pledge said KI’s harvest, which largely finished at the weekend, was slightly earlier than normal, with possibly less area sown to focus on livestock production.
He said headers had been held up by rain prior to Christmas, further reducing cereal yields and quality.
“We had a lot of cereals flattened or downgraded to feed because of significant rains over four weeks from mid-November, up to 100 millimetres in parts,” he said.
“This was followed by a fortnight of drizzly, moist conditions, which exacerbated the problem.”
Mr Pledge said the rain was good for pastures, but ruined any dry feed of quality.
“We expect a lot of handfeeding to be required from now on,” he said. “This is not unusual for this time of year, but the feed quality has dropped out pretty quickly.”
Mr Pledge said canola crops did well from the dry winter and October rains.
“But cereals were average to below-average, with the odd good spot,” he said.
“The big disappointment has been broad beans, which struggled from the lack of spring rain.”
Mr Pledge said commodity prices were softening the blow of crop downgrades.
Another area to finish harvest this week was the mid to Upper South East region, which Elders Naracoorte agronomist Jason McClure said was average to above-average.
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“We were very lucky to have average growing season rainfall and it fell at the right time,” he said. “Plus we didn’t have any major frosts.
“Grain quality was dependent on the variety. A lot of Trojan was downgraded because of late rains, but Mace and Wallup still went H2 and APW."
Further south, Mr McClure said harvest was about two-thirds of the way through.
“It’s mainly wheat and beans to go,” he said.
“Yields have also been average to above.
“Beans have had a particularly good year, with yields up to 4.5 tonnes a hectare in the mid SE, while further south broad beans have been 3-3.5t/ha, so growers should be extremely happy with prices about $800-$900/t.”
Mr McClure said initial wheat yield reports had also been good.
“The quality has been knocked about, but they’re still cutting up to 8t/ha,” he said.
The yields are a stark contrast to the overall state figures.
So far, Viterra has received more than 3.9 million tonnes into its network from this harvest, compared with 5.6mt this time last year and 8.21mt in 2017.
Viterra operations manager Michael Hill said there had been variability across the state, with some areas experiencing average to above-average yields and some areas well below average.
Cummins has received the most grain of any Viterra site this season, with nearly 450,000t delivered.
Port Giles, Port Lincoln, Ardrossan and Tumby Bay were the next highest sites.
Mr Hill said most of the western region had also finished harvest, with only a few areas on the lower Eyre Peninsula still reaping.