STRONG yields and minimal harvest disruptions have capped off a successful sorghum season on the Darling Downs.

An estimated 80 percent of the crop has been harvested across the Darling Downs and south to Goondiwindi, with only small volumes of later-planted sorghum remaining.

Harvest has wrapped up in northern New South Wales, where strong sorghum yields in pockets have helped offset a smaller planted area, while desiccation is under way on the Liverpool Plains.

Dalby-based Nutrien Ag Solutions senior agronomist Ross Pomroy said harvest had “been fantastic so far”.

He said crops planted early, from August to early October, had produced the stand-out yields, with growers reporting yields of 7-10 tonnes per hectare as a farm average.

He said these results “were 180-200 percent” higher than normal.

AgForce grains president Brendan Taylor said he had heard of dryland yields topping 11t/ha, to make them comparable to irrigated crops.

He said there were widespread reports of 7-8.5t/ha yields across the region which was “extraordinarily good”.

Mr Taylor said the bulk of the harvest was completed with “very little interruptions” from rain or flooding.

He said this was in a sharp contrast to the “dog’s breakfast” of last season, with “heaps of rain during the harvest period that caused all the quality issues and wet paddocks.”

“This year, the bulk of the harvest has been a breeze,” Mr Taylor said.

Mr Pomroy said patchy falls from ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred have done minimal damage to unharvested sorghum crops.

He said there would be “some weathering issues”, but the rainfall was generally not significant enough to impact quality.

“We had less than 40mm in most places,” Mr Pomroy said.

“There were some places that had 100mm but most of those locations were finished harvest.”

He said some very late sorghum would have appreciated the rain, but most growers would be looking for drier conditions in the next two or three weeks to finish harvest.

Yields positive in NNSW

Harvest is over in northern NSW, with above-average yields and good-quality sorghum seen across the growing region.

Nutrien Ag Solutions Narrabri-based agronomist Dylan Verrer said the crop relied on storm rain throughout the season, which led to inconsistent yields across properties.

He said districts that were under storms had reported very good yields, while others were lower than expected.

“Around Burren (Junction) and Rowena, there was 6t/ha of sorghum which is unheard of,” Mr Verrer said.

“Normally it is too hot, but they were lucky to get under some storms.

“East of Narrabri was 5-6t, which is pretty good for us.”

Mr Verrer said this was in contrast to crops at Baan Baa, 50km south-east of Narrabri, “which on paper should have been better yielding, but it was back to 5t”.

Plains preparing for harvest

On the Liverpool Plains, growers are preparing for harvest in coming weeks.

The region received less rain than expected from ex-TC Alfred, with falls of 15-40mm reported.

Pinnacle Agriculture principal agronomist Glen Pinn, based in Gunnedah, said growers had either just desiccated their crops or were set to do so in coming days and weeks.

“We were waiting for a lot of the rainfall to pass before we started to desiccate the sorghum,” Mr Pinn said.

“A lot of stuff will start to get desiccated from now on…and harvest will start to crank up after that.”

He said crops were expected to yield “above-average” overall, but this varied from farm to farm.

“We’ll have quite solid sorghum yields.

“It’s been a storm lotto; where people have fallen under rain, their crop has benefitted from that, and where they’ve missed out will be reflected in their yield.”

In its latest estimates released last week, ABARES estimated the sorghum crop now being harvested at 2.3 million tonnes (Mt), with 1.5Mt in Qld and 800,000t in NSW.

A portion of the Qld crop is in Central Qld, where the crop was only recently planted, and harvest will take place in winter.

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