December 1, 2009
West Australian harvest of winter crops accelerates
A harvest of winter grains in Western Australia state-- which usually accounts for 40 percent of national wheat output--accelerated in the week ended Monday, grain storage and handling concern Cooperative Bulk Handling Ltd. said late Monday (November 30).
CBH received 2.4 million tonnes of grain into its system, which comprises nearly 200 upcountry storage sites and four coastal export terminals, over the past week to take total intake from the harvest to 4.3 million tonnes, or a little more than one-third of the estimated total intake of 11.8 million tonnes for this crop year ending March 31.
Typically, about 70percent of CBH receivals are wheat and 20 percent are barley, most of which are exported, making the state a major supplier of these cereals to the global trade.
CBH's northern Geradlton zone received 400,000 tonnes in the past week to take total receivals to 1.4 million tonnes, the busiest week thus far this harvest, zone manager Duncan Gay said in CBH's weekly harvest report.
"With a good run of fine weather next week we'll see some growers in the northern end of the zone start to wind up their harvest programs," he said.
Despite rainfall interrupting harvest progress early in the harvest, grain quality appears to be holding up well and most are achieving the maximum grade for their deliveries, he said.
In the Kwinana East zone, CBH is trying to get as much grain into storage as possible while the weather is fine, zone manager Allan Walker reported.
The wet start to the harvest has had a slight impact on quality, he said.
Kwinana West zone manager Brett Jeffrey said grain quality being delivered is variable with additional grain segregations in storages opened for lower quality grain.
The southern Albany zone had a late start to harvest but CBH has already received twice as much grain at this time of year as last year. Extra segregations in storage have been opened, zone manager Richard Simonaitis said.
