Bad weather causes frustrating harvest

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34072, 9 February 1976, Page 2

Bad weather causes frustrating harvest

Farmers trying to get on with their harvest are having one of the most difficult and frustrating seasons for years.

After the unsettled weather since Christmas, there were a few better days for harvesting last week, but there was another break in the weather at the week-end. The chairman of the Dominion agriculture section of Federated Farmers (Mr A. L. Mulholland) said a week ago that his remarks about the weather would be unnrintable — this week-end, he said, he was lost for words. But there were still some redeeming features. It was too cold for the wheat to sprout, he said. If it was going to rain, then it should be cold.

The continued wetting of the crop could result in the grain’s losing some of its colour, but this would not affect its efficiency for making bread. There was also likely to be some loss in bushel weight. Where crops had been flattened by the winds of the week before last, drying would be slower now. said Mr Mulholland. The weather at the weekend would also put another

nail in the coffin of the white clover crop that had once looked very promising. But the earlier flowering had not set seed well and the later flowering had been affected by the weather. Where the crop had been windrowed it might have to be undercut again because of second growth, and the seed would be discoloured. The further rain at the week-end has also complicated the harvesting of pea

crops, which have had to be windrowed because the periodic rain this season had caused weed growth, preventing directheading.