Headers come to standstill

Kondinin farmers Grant and Lindsay Tuckwell received 44mm of rain in the 24 hours until Friday morning, including some hail that the couple estimated had damaged 10-20 per cent of their crops.

Speaking to _Countryman _ over the weekend, Mrs Tuckwell said the ground was still too wet at that stage to even get trucks in and out of the paddock, and it was also too wet to begin the summer spraying program.

Mrs Tuckwell said they still had 750ha left to harvest, the majority of which was Mace wheat.

"When we get going again next week there is going to need to be some thought put into where we put the field bins and getting road trains in and out of the paddocks," she said.

"It is really very wet, there is water running through our paddocks."

While Mrs Tuckwell said the weather had cleared in Kondinin, the big concern was now quality issues for the remaining crop.

North Cunderdin farmer David Beard also received more than 40mm across Thursday and Friday.

With only 200ha to go before the end of harvest, Mr Beard said the rain was more a frustration than anything.

He said the rain occurred in two separate events across the two days.

"I thought after we had the first lot of rain, of only 9mm, that we'd missed out, but obviously not," he said.

The Beards have received 39mm in October and 41mm in November.

"The rule of thumb is that if you have two rain events greater than 10mm each, you'll get sprouted grain, and we've certainly had that," he sad.

"But I hope I'm wrong," he said.

Mr Beard said he would now have an extensive spraying program to undertake over summer.

But he said with the unpredictable weather patterns, it was likely to rain again before the summer was over.

"I won't do the whole lot at this early stage in the summer, the chances of getting some more rain are still pretty good," Mr Beard said.

In Lake Varley, farmers received some rain but it was the damaging winds that were of more concern.

Dean Sinclair, whose property is 56km east of Newdegate, said his farm received between 8 and 15mm across his 14,000ha.

Mr Sinclair said despite the bad weather, he was happy with the results this harvest, with two-tonne averages for wheat on his Lake Varley property and three tonnes at Lake Magenta.

"All reports at this stage across our various properties are between 8 and 15mm, but there were reasonably bad winds and we aren't sure at this stage what the damage is," he said.

Mr Sinclair said with 15 per cent moisture readings in the wheat, the headers had been stopped over the weekend but he hoped to get back into harvest early in the week.

CBH Albany Zone manager Greg Thornton said between 10mm and 100mm had been received across the Albany port zone.

Mr Thornton said growers in the Wagin, Broomehill, and Cranbrook areas had been able to get back on their headers, but many other growers would be stopped for several days following the rain.

He added much of the zone had been harvesting for only five days after the last rain event.

"The moisture levels have really only just come down, but some farmers might be parked up for a week or more," he said.

Mr Thornton said CBH would be introducing more wheat segregations to handle the expected quality problems from the recent rain.

"We'll be opening additional wheat segregations to deal with the quality issues, not at all sites but where I can accommodate them, to ensure growers have some options," he said.

"We are expecting 1.5 million tonnes of wheat to be delivered in this zone and to date we have only received 350,000, so there is still a lot more to come in.

"Sixty per cent of the barley deliveries were already going feed, because of a combination of protein and colour issues, but we expect to see that increase because of colour and staining."

Mr Thornton said falling number tests would now be introduced on visually sprouted grain.

CBH Kwinana Zone manager Gavin Bignell said it was too early to determine the impact of the rain, but quality issues over the past month throughout the zone had been minimal.