HARVESTING is nearly over and for many it was a disappointing end to a challenging year.

What looked like a top season earlier, turned to mud as the rain fell in copious amounts across the region, with a total of 839.6mm recorded at Narrandera Airport weather station for 2022.

Narrandera Nutrien branch manager and agronomist, Dave Sergeant, said some farmers had told him they had measured 32 to 34 inches of rain, double the average rainfall.

He said crops were well set up at the start of the season, money was spent on nitrogen and crops were looking good. However, when it started raining and hardly stopped through September and October, there wasn’t enough sun and it was too wet, particularly for wheat and barley.

“Canola performed very well as a general rule of thumb,” he said. “Oil levels were good.”

However wheat yields were down by 30 to 50 per cent of expectations. This was due to waterlogging, disease and not being able to get on to paddocks to harvest.

Many people were disappointed, he said.

“Most people were lucky with canola, it matured in time. Canola was past its physical assurity, so wasn’t affected like wheat and barley.”

Barley still handled the conditions a bit better than the wheat, with a lot of it coming in at R1. There was some malt barley and a bit of light barley.

Wheat was down to three and every grade in between.

There is hope for a good start to next season with a full profile of moisture currently in the soil.

“They (farmers) will try and consolidate what subsoil moisture they have,” Dave said.

New South Wales Farmers Association south-west regional services manager, Frank Galluzzo, said it had been a challenging season for all growers.

He had been hearing how frustrating it was for farmers who were looking forward to heavy yields, and then not being able to get into paddocks to spray for disease and then harvest when ready.

He was aware that some farmers could need extra help with subsidies or support and he urged anyone, whether a NSWFA member or not, to check what support was available on the group’s website at https//www.nswfarmers.org.au

Hudson Farming principal, Andrew Hudson, was contract harvesting in the Ardlethan area this season and said “it was very trying times”.

He remembers a similar season in ‘92/’93 with a lot of bogging and that harvest didn’t finish until mid-January.

Thirty years on, the equipment is better and they were able to get the crops off with much of it good quality and within a better time frame.

“The biggest thing was the timing of the rain for harvesting,” he said.

The rain just kept coming during September and October and because the previous harvest season had seen a deluge, the ground stayed wet and all the extra rain during 2022 had nowhere to go.

Logistic efforts were required for this harvest and “the first couple of weeks it was pretty trying with bogging”.

Overall, the contract season has been good for them however. They missed out on some good jobs in top end New South Wales because of flooding but Ardlethan, Swan Hill and Charlton were all good.

They are now back in south-west Victoria, starting the harvest there.

He estimated they had about 25-30 boggings over all the machines running, but as the season progressed with less rain, it got easier.