Even though there have been reports of great variation in yield and quality, barley crops in the Weethalle district were yielding up to 2.0 tonnes per hectare, but one more rain event in spring could have seen this yield double.

However, farmers in this district were happy to be getting grain from crops this season after the disastrous 2007 harvest.

On Graeme Young’s property “Eurabonny” on the Weethalle-Barellan Road, 260 hectares of Schooner barley was being stripped, with total yield expected to be around 475 tonnes of grain, averaging 1.8 tonnes per hectare.

Canola harvesting in many districts has also started.

Around the Ardlethan district canola crops were windrowed in the last two weeks of October.

The crops felt the impact of a dry September and October and aphid pressure resulted in some crops being sprayed twice, so yields may be less than first expected.

In an ironic twist, over 30mls of rain has fallen in the district since the canola was windrowed. If this rain had fallen a month earlier, yields would have been much higher.

Contractors Bingham Harvesting of Lismore (Victoria), started work at the Warakirri property ‘Cowabbie Station’ at Ardlethan on November 4, after completing their work commitments in the northern part of the State.

The company has been harvesting at this farm for several years and with 1350 hectares of canola, 800 hectares of barley and 1350 hectares of wheat to be harvested, the contractors will be kept busy over the next few weeks ensuring all grain is harvested as quickly as possible.

Farmers will now have some marketing decisions to make. Many farmers will be initially storing grain on-farm or warehousing it until grain prices become more favourable.