Late rains put growers on edge

Farmers are in a race against time to get this year's grain bounty off and securely stored before forecast rain this week.

One grower, farming north-east of Geraldton, said the ground was already wetter now than it was when the crop was going in.

His challenge, with the wheat yielding about 4.8 tonnes was getting the grain away fast enough.

At Walkaway, Gareth Rowe's property received 40mm last week, which brought his October total close to 100mm.

Mr Rowe said his crops quickly dried off after the downpour, but was concerned about the impact more rain would have.

"The canola dried out really quickly - from 10 per cent moisture on Friday to 5 per cent on Tuesday," he said.

"We are yet to start on our wheat, so it's hard to know if the rain did any damage.

"I'm sure the wheat is close to sprouting and if we get some more bad weather we could have quality issues."

CBH general manager of operations Colin Tutt said moisture content and quality was a concern for the State's wheat harvest.

"It's been a difficult start to harvest because of the high moisture in crops," he said.

"The rainfall has impacted on protein levels, colour, falling numbers and fungal staining.

"We are very concerned about the rains coming this week."

Mr Tutt said growers in all parts of the State had delivered grain, with most received in the northern agricultural region.

A total of 204,000 tonnes was delivered to CBH by Tuesday, with 180,000 tonnes from the Geraldton zone.

CBH closed its Yuna, Mullewa and Carnamah bins at the weekend because rains were forecast.

Farmers in those areas were hastily trying to get crop off at this time and were pleased the wet weather didn't eventuate.

Yuna farmer Murray Brooks started harvesting his wheat a fortnight ago.

He said a 25mm rainfall event last week resulted in some downgrades in his wheat, but on average he was pleased with his crop.

"We've had one load downgraded to GP, but quality has generally been good and yields have been between 2.5 and four tonnes," he said.

Most farmers in the central and southern parts of the Wheatbelt are still waiting for their crops to dry off and hope to not be frustrated by further rain delays.

Merredin Landmark agronomist David Meharry said a handful of growers started harvesting their wheat on Tuesday.

"Some guys got started on barley and canola this week," he said.

"Most of the wheat out here is not quite ready, so hopefully we have no more pre-harvest rain.

"We haven't had any sprouting issues yet, but it will depend on the amount of rain we get and the conditions afterwards."

The Bureau of Meteorology's most recent forecast predicted isolated showers and thunderstorms for the majority of the agricultural region for the last half of this week.

Mr Tutt said CBH was still confident of receiving 13 million tonnes of grain this harvest.