CROPPING

WA harvest pressures CBH network

GOOD harvesting conditions in Western Australia have resulted in many areas ramping up harvest in time for Christmas, despite harvest ban delays in some wheat belt regions.

Alex Paull
WA harvest pressures CBH network

Total receivals into CBH reached 12.3 million tonnes on Friday, and CBH General Manager of Operations David Capper said the network was under significant pressure to maintain services to growers, with over 400,000 tonnes received per day on 16 of the last 18 days.

“That amounts to more than 7 million tonnes in 16 days. As well as receiving the crop, we are also working to move tonnes to port and free up space in country sites,” Capper said.

The Geraldton zone had another very steady week with the estimate of 3.2Mt looking very achievable.

Geraldton zone manager Duncan Gray said 2.83Mt had been delivered.

“We’re still receiving about 55,000 tonnes per day,” Gray said.

The Moonyoonooka site broke its all-time receival record (352,847.84 tonnes) with Morawa, Carnamah, Perenjori and Mingenew on track to break their records as well late this week and early next week.

“We should start to see receivals in the zone slow down next week with a lot of growers finishing up.”

Harvest has been progressing well across the Kwinana zone with near ideal harvest conditions for the past few weeks. 

Kwinana zone manager Gavin Bignell said around 200,000 tonnes had been delivered per day over the past 11 consecutive week days.

“This has resulted in total deliveries now being over 5.1Mt,” Bignell said.

The Albany zone received 650,000 tonnes in the past week taking total receivals for the year so far to 1.8 million tonnes.

At the same time last season, CBH had received 1.9Mt in the Albany zone.

And Esperance Zone Manager Mick Daw said harvest was tailing off in the zone with total receivals now surpassing the zone estimate of 2Mt.

"We’ve now received 2.14 million tonnes thanks to another week of excellent weather,” Daw said.

“The majority of growers have finished harvest and are carting grain stored on farm - we’re expecting this to ease off over the coming days.

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