Harvest threatened

Press, 16 February 1984, Page 1

Harvest threatened

By

HUGH STRINGLEMAN,

farm editor

Canterbury cereal growers are being bitterly frustrated by regular rain and high grain moisture levels which at present loom as a big threat to what promised to be a record harvest.

Most standing wheat and barley crops in Canterbury are now mature but grain moisture levels greater than 14 per cent are preventing harvest.

Grain farmers are equipped with moisture-con-tent testing machines and are anxiously testing while trying to make sure that their harvesting machinery is in top condition or that the harvesting contractor will come the minute he is called.

Two weeks of warm dry weather are urgently

needed so that the harvest of wheat, barley, and peas can be completed, according to the chairman of the agriculture section of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, Mr George Hutton, of Darfield. In the worst position at the moment are those farmers with peas which were cut and windrowed anything up to three weeks ago but have not been able to be harvested. Farmers in this situation were being hurt financially by increasing sprout damage in the windrowed peas, said Mr Hutton, and in most cases desiccating chemicals will need to be applied for a harvest to be possible.

Winter-sown barley crops were largely harvested in January but spring-sown malting barley has now reached maturity and will be competing for combine

harvesting time with wheat. It is the wheat which presents the most complex and worrying picture at present. Even a prolonged spell of dry weather may not completely dispel the question mark which has already appeared over wheat quality. Early quality-testing results from the Wheat Research Institute in Christchurch have shown a big drop in bake score, the main measurement of quality and determinant of the price paid by the Wheat Board to the farmer.

The early testing has indicated that up to half the wheat harvested in Canterbury may be either category B or undergrade (not suitable for flour milling), compared with only 10 per cent which falls into B grade in a normal season. With such a lot of category B wheat coming for-

ward, it seems likely that the contingency disposal arrangements for that category included in the new wheat marketing scheme will apply in only the first year of the scheme. The average bake score of all wheat harvested to date is 13.8 compared with 17.9 at the same stage last season.

This indicates that only 52 per cent of North Canterbury, central Canterbury, and Mid-Canterbury wheat will be category A (bake scon 15 or better), while category B (12 to 14 bake score) will be 28 per cent and undergrade (less than 12 bake score) will account for 20 per cent. The main problem leading to the lower average bake score is believed to be early harvesting, while wheat is still immature.

Farmers have been tempted to harvest as soon as the grain moisture content falls to 14 per cent, but because grain itself matures more quickly than the rest of the plant, the .wheat is still technically immature.

Mr Hutton has therefore urged growers to wait as long as they are able before harvest, even if moisture is acceptable (or the crop is “fit”), to minimise the risk from immaturity leading to low bake scores.

He recognises that because the harvest is three or four weeks later than in normal dry years, already some farmers, fearing more of the regular falls of rain, will be sorely tempted to rush into crops with the combines when moisture

levels are right. Easterly winds bringing extensive morning and evening mists have been a big problem in coastal grain-growing areas, but the unusually heavy periods of rain during the last two week-ends have been the main offenders to Canter-bury-wide crops. The general manager of the Wheat Board, Mr Guy Elliott, said yesterday that category A wheat was being moved *' local mills and to the North Island as it was received by the board. “But disposal plans under the new marketing arrangements for handling category B wheat will not be settled until later in the harvest when the actual area quantities can be more accurately assessed and discussions have been held with the Wheatgrowers’ sub-sec-tiori of Federated Farmers.

“In the meantime, growers are urged, with the larger quantity of lowerquality wheat coming forward for disposal, to exercise extreme care with segregation procedures so that categorisation into A, B, and undergrade can be carried out to best effect,” Mr Elliott said.

Growing conditions until recently had been ideal and considerably increased plantings of barley and wheat promised a bumper harvest of both cereals. Farmers who were able to cultivate extended their areas under cereals to help them recover financially from the effects of the three previous drought years. The total area planted to barley in Canterbury this year has been estimated by the Ministry of Agriculture to be 67,754 ha, 62 per cent more than the previous

year. The wheat area increased 10 per cent to 43,942 ha.

The present weather difficulties illustrated how quickly a bumper year could turn into a disaster year, according to a director of the Wheatgrowers’ sub-section, Mr Arthur Mulholland, of Darfield. He could not remember a year in which moisture levels and quality problems posed such a threat to growers in Canterbury. Farmers had been able to rely on the norwester to facilitate harvest.

Although the return of the wind for a prolonged period would be welcomed by all grain growers, some crops were now so mature that strong winds would result in grain being lost to the ground. “It is a very worrying period for all growers,” Mr Mulholland said.