Challenging harvest for Canterbury arable farmers

Foundation for Arable Research's Jo Drummond, pictured speaking at a field day, sympathises with growers struggling with a challenging harvest. Photo / Tim Cronshaw

Canterbury's soggy harvest is shaping up to be a game of two halves for arable farmers.

Unrelenting rain last month that continued to interrupt harvesting has caused major headaches in the shape of sprouting, flattened crops, boggy paddocks, increased demand for drying facilities and quality issues.

One estimate is that the white clover seed crop is down by about a third as a result of seeds germinating, while the worst of the milling wheat and other crops have been abandoned.

In contrast, grain and seed crops that were brought in before late January have performed well and even above average in some cases.

The Foundation for Arable Research has come across the same gap in its trial crops at Chertsey and other sites.

Cereals senior researcher Jo Drummond said this harvest had challenged growers on many levels and cultivar performance trials were no exception.

She said there was a big difference between crop yields, depending on when they were harvested.

This was shown with a coded cultivar called KWW83 B yielding 15.3 tonnes of feed wheat a hectare at an irrigated site in Wakanui which would be hard to beat, she said.

"That was an outstanding result considering the season we have had. The crops look OK for farmers who were able to harvest in the window from early to late January.

"If things were harvested late January onwards then that is where they have started to struggle.

"When the school holidays finished the harvest became more challenging."

The top cultivar was followed by LG Tapestry on 14.9t/ha and Graham on 14.6t/ha at a trial sown in early April on a paddock previously growing Chinese cabbage and harvested on February 18. Average yields were 14.3 t/ha, the same as last season, and similar to the four-year mean of 14.7 t/ha.

Drummond said some farmers were still getting their late crops in so all the results had yet to come through, but overall it had been a challenging harvest.

"The cream had already been taken off in November and December when we had reduced sunshine for the grain fill period. Anything that matured from late January onwards is struggling in the harvest conditions."

She said farmers who were having to harvest grain with a higher moisture content were still dealing with a drying backlog and were making decisions about which crops should get the priority.

This was made more difficult for those who did not have access to drying facilities.

Milling wheat crops weren't meeting targets as a result of low falling numbers because of high moisture and weren't hitting protein levels or test weights, she said.

Drummond said milling wheat trials were much the same as feed wheat with a mixed bag for yields.

She said the trial highlights so far were some of the dryland feed wheat crops, including at Chertsey, which had done well.

Initial FAR results for feed wheat showed another autumn-sown trial at an irrigated site in Methven produced below-average results.

The SY Springboard cultivar yielded 12.2t/ha, KWW83 B 11.8t/ha and Ignite B 11.8t/ha.

The crops were sown in late April on a paddock previously growing radish and harvested on February 18. 2022. Average yields were 11.4 t/ha, lower than last season's 12.9 t/ha yield, and the four-year mean of 13.7 t/ha.