Bad weather disrupts harvest

Press, 19 February 1988, Page 13

Bad weather disrupts harvest

A substantial proportion of this season’s wheat crop in Canterbury is likely to be unsuitable for milling because of the recent damp weather. Persistent drizzle and high humidity has caused some wheat crops awaiting harvest to sprout, including paddocks of the top quality milling varieties of Otane and Oroua. Growers who grew these varieties in search

of higher returns for wheat might find their grain did not meet the quality standards stipulated by mills, grain merchants have warned. The drop in quality could mean that wheat unsuitable for milling could be worth about $BO a tonne less than expected to the growers. Prices to growers for milling wheat this season generally range from $230 to $250 a tonne. The long spell of

warm, humid weather which had disrupted the harvest was disappointing to wheat-growers, said Mr Mervyn Gray, chairman of United Wheatgrowers. The outlook for the industry had been improving with indicators giving positive , signals, but the poor harvest weather would re- ( duce the quality of some lines. He urged frmers not to mix wheat harvested be- 1 fore the bad weather *

with that harvested later because of the possibility of contamination. Between 50 to 60 per cent of the total harvest in Canterbury has been completed compared with about 80 per cent at ' this time in other years, said Mr Kim Stevenson, ( a farm advisory officer (agronomy) with MAF- j Tech at Lincoln. j During the first part of ’ the harvest, most crops I appeared to be of good i

average quality and yield, although some of the later pea crops were disrupted by late disease problems. Challenge Seeds has announced the formation of a pool to market the undergrade wheat. The company’s cereals manager, Mr Bryan Aitken, said he expected a big proportion of the unharvested wheat in Canterbury would be unacceptable for milling.