Harvest best in the northern part of the province

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 16

Harvest best in the northern part of the province

The harvest has been a bit variable this season. The results have been best in the central and northern part of the province. In South Canterbury, where a lot of harvesting has still to be done, it has been disappointing for the second season in succession. Right through there has been a good deal of variation. Over the last 10 days or

so, with moist conditions night and morning, and heavy dews and fogs, progress with the harvest has been slow. There is still quite a lot of barley and clover to be handled. In North Canterbury, the Ministry’s senior advisory officer, Mr G. D. Miller, said that wheat yields in particular would ' be up quite a bit and bet - ter than in the last three seasons, but he added that he was not able to put a figure on the likely average at this stage. However, there was one disappointing feature — there was smut in a line of the new variety, Oroua. Where there was smut in a crop, the grower could just about forget about it,

Mr Miller said, but he is still confident that a lot of the variety will be grown in the district in years to come. For barley harvested so far, Mr Miller says that yields would be on a par with last year. However, due to the weather over the Christmas and New Year holidays, Mr Miller said that quite a lot of ryegrass seed had been lost. The harvest has been a pretty satisfactory one in central Canterbury, according to Mr R. L. Bennetts, reporting from Darfield. Some people, he said, had been in the happy position of running out of storage for their crops. For Malvern County, he

says the average wheat yield this season could be about 60 bushels to the acre, compared with a normal figure of about 52 for the district, and he thinks that barley could yield on average about 67 or. 68 bushels against a normal average of about 60. However, on some of the lighter land in the district affected by the dry spell in December, he said that results had not been so good, and some wheat yields had dropped down to the thirties, while in more favoured areas in many cases yields had been around the eighties. As in other areas impressive looking ryegrass seed crops did not come up to promise, because of the battering, they got from

the weather and yields would end up being nearer average. While wheat crops m particular had their share of disease in Mid-Canter-bury, Mr A. S. Brown, of the Ministry there, is picking that yields . on average will be a little better than average and barley yields will be about on a par with average. Ryegrass seed crops in this district also suffered from the weather with some crops losing an estimated 40 per cent of their potential yield. But fears in the district that problems might be experienced in bringing in the harvest because of a shortage of diesel fuel have not materialised. Around the Timaru area, Mr D. D. Collie, of the Ministry in Timaru, said that wheat yields had been highly variable with some ■ crops being ivery good and others very low yielding and badly affected with footrot, take-all and hessian fly. Grain quality has also not been very good. Overall he said it would be very difficult to put an estimate on the average yield, although it might be about average. At the middle of this week quite a lot of wheat and a large part of the barley crop in the district remained to be handled. There was a similar story about ryegrass as in other districts with some paddocks being lost alto-

gether and 'the over all yield down possibly by 25 per cent on average, but it was again difficult to put a figure on it. By the middle of this week about 50 per cent of the wheat harvest, possi- ■ bly a third of the peas, and about 10 per cent of the barley had been 'gath J ered in in the Waimate district. Mr R. L Gillespiereported. Here wheat yields have been disappointing.- Crops looked good from a distance, he said, but the grain was weighing light and crops had been affected by a lot of take-all, quite a bit of septoria leaf spot and also hessian fly. ' He was forecasting an average yield for the district of about 46 bushels-: to the acre compared with a district average of about 55. Last year in a poor, season the average was 43. Few crops this season; were going better than 65 bushels, he said. But the barley is look-; ing good and Mr Gillespie says that the forecast is-, for an average yield of about 75 bushels. Some - of the late spring- sown,; wheat crops are also’look-, ing promising but most in-, the district are early;; sown. S’ Again ryegrass was generally a source of dis--appointment, and cloven-, crops are highly variablewith some very good anaothers having to be aban- .. doned. i-