Harvest-One week in!

: From Chaser Bin to Mother Bin

It’s a week since we started harvest. The contractors made the long trek from the Victorian border (1000 km’s) and arrived with two John Deere headers, 3 single trucks and a couple of road trains. Along the way we’ve picked up a couple of extra trucks which is handy for when the turnaround at the delivery silos becomes slow. This year we’re carting the majority of our crop to Goondiwindi. Our normal delievery silo is currently cut off by floodwater and the feedlot where we usually contract our barley is cut off as well. It’s a two hour and twenty minute return journey to Goondiwindi plus the time it takes for the trucks to queue and unload-which can be hours depending on demand. Once at the silo the grain in the trucks is sampled and tested for moisture and quality. In a season such as this where the crops have had what we call a soft finish due to the mild weather correct moisture can be a problem. The cut off for delivery for wheat and barley is 12.5 % anything above that is not accepted as stored grain can become mouldy and heat up, in some cases causing fire. It happened last year at the feedlot. Four of our trucks parked outside the complex for an early am start awoke to a distinct cloud of smoke! This season we’re probing all our grain before it leaves the paddock to check moisture and protein. High levels of protein is rewarded with better prices so in some cases we may blend truckloads on farm if one load is lower in protein and another higher. We managed to get all our faba beans off. They’re off to India, however one paddock of barley required the headers to dodge flood water in the middle. Luckily noone got bogged. We’ve finished the barley now with a couple of liveable 16 hr days ( 11 am to 3 am). The late starts are due to the cool mornings and associated moisture. We need a warm morning to get going. We only managed half a wheat field today (the other half wasn’t ripe) before a nasty little storm appeared out of the south and stopped everyone in their tracks. Hopefully we will get going again tomorrow as there is big rain predicted here for monday! In the meantime tomorrow we have the interesting task of towing headers through the Whalan Creek to get to the wheat on the other side. The trucks will have to make a fifty km detour and come in the back way-through the scrub. That should be interesting! Stay tuned for some interesting pics and you’ll also get to meet the team members…