Rain brought harvest time anxiety, but headers are now getting busy

Graingrowers were anxiously watching the weather forecast and the predicted heavy rain last week as headers prepared to move into their crops.

Rain at just the wrong time for harvest, and hail damage in some cases, has been a blow for some growers.

Farmers will be keen to get into the paddocks and get harvest underway and will be looking forward to long hours, from dawn to past midnight, to get the crop in.

Dave Meppem began harvesting his crop on his leased property ‘Wentworth’ prior to the weekend and his team has continued through every available hour. “We had a number of falls of rain totalling more than 75mm,” Mr Meppem said.

“The Lillaroy durum variety is still going DR1 yielding between 3.8 and eight tonnes per hectare – the latter being from the long, drought-forced fallow.”

Now the hope is for continuation of sunny, summer, harvest days.