It never rains, but it does pour down

Wet weather has not only kept the CBH site quiet at Greenhills it has also forced operators to knock back some deliveries. CBH receival point operator Leon Squires said deliveries were expected to pick up over the next two weeks, provided hot weather arrived and brought the moisture content down. Mr Squires said the bin, which takes only malt barley, had been forced to turn some loads away due to the effects of unseasonal rain. PHOTO: DANELLA BEVIS

"It's not pretty" was how a west Katanning farmer described the scene after weekend hail took a hefty toll on a year's work.

"Frustrating" is one of the other words growers, who haven't been able to turn a wheel because of the rain, have used to describe this season's harvest.

Widespread falls through the Great Southern and Esperance area last week added further delays to what has already being a difficult season and more rain is forecast for this week.

For the week to Tuesday, Canna received 2mm, Ravensthorpe 47, Salmon Gums 31, Westonia 9, Narembeen 5, Broomehill 21, Cranbrook 48, Woodanilling 39 and Quairading 10mm.

In the north of the Wheatbelt it's a brighter picture and steady as she goes with 1.41 million tonnes in the Geraldton bin on Tuesday - 300,000 of that delivered in the past week - a far cry from the 70,000t that the growers in the Albany zone have managed to deliver in that same time. All up, there was 2.86 million tonnes of grain already in bins across the State on Tuesday, 119,000t of that in the Albany zone.

This time last year there was 700,000t binned in the Albany zone. Esperance growers had delivered 130,000t while 570,000t had been delivered in the East of the Kwinana Zone and 601,000t in the West of the zone, with 29,000t to Metro Grains Centre.

At Mt Madden, Steve and Wendy Tilbrook were still pulled up on Tuesday after 13mm over the weekend, drizzle on Monday and heavy, overcast conditions Tuesday.

"There has been two and a half days where the moisture got below 13 per cent since we started - and that was three weeks ago," Steve said.

Had it not been for their grain dryers and storage sheds they wouldn't have been able to get going at all. As it is the Tilbrooks have managed to get about half their barley off.

The Baudin has being going into Malt 1, but the Buloke has being going feed, missing out just on colour at 55, while the Vlamingh is still in the shed waiting for tests on quality.

Although Gnowangerup farmers Wayne and Jody Pech had planned to start harvest last week, that was put on hold after they got between one and four inches of rain from last Thursday. The four inches landed south of Gnowangerup.

If the weather holds they will start later this week, if not, it will be next month. "We usually get 1-2 weeks in in November," Wayne says.

He is expecting the barley and some of the early wheat to be downgraded because of the rain, but is hoping the later wheat and the canola and pulses will fare okay. And with the chances of another fly outbreak high, the sheep are also being closely checked.

With significant damage to crops from the frost and late rains, CBH adjusted the receival standards for malt barley and last week introduced a Malt 2 segregation for Gairdner and Baudin, in addition to the earlier announced Feed 4 and Feed 5 segregations, but it has now said that will be the end of the changes.

CBH chief executive, Imre Mencshelyi, said there would be no further widening of receival standards for malt because it would risk damaging customer confidence in West Australian malt barley.

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