MALLEE farmers have hit record breaking yields this harvest, with some crops returning between four and five tonnes to the hectare.
But many are harvesting around the clock to strip their paddocks before further rain forecast for today and over the weekend.
Third-generation farmer Peter Schodde has been farming his property, 10km north-east of Sea Lake, for more than four decades, and in that time has never seen a crop as good as this year.
Despite leasing a large portion of his farm as he heads into semi-retirement, Mr Schodde said it had been a bumper year for production, with strong harvest grain prices.
“This has been our best year ever,” Mr Schodde said.
“To get a crop like that on Mallee ground is unbelievable considering we are basically desert country out here.
“It’s been amazing what we’ve been able to grow this year, considering the region’s long-term average is 2.5 tonnes to the hectare.”
Mr Schodde said stored soil moisture from last year’s October rainfall was beneficial to this year’s crop, and a further 40mm of rain this October had contributed to the record-breaking yields.
While the record yields have been welcomed by farmers across the region, Mr Schodde said there was now an urgency to strip the crop from paddocks following last week’s heavy downpour, which caused flash flooding in parts of Swan Hill.
“Overall we’ve been much luckier than Ultima or Swan Hill,” Mr Schodde said.
“We’re hoping crops around here have had less damage. While we’ve got some of the best crops ever on farm, there’s still a lot of unstripped crop out there.”
It’s still unknown what impact the rain will have on grain quality, and with more rain forecast today and over the weekend, farmers remained cautiously optimistic despite the potential for bumper crops to be downgraded to feed.
“Last October, none of us thought this was a possibility, we thought we were headed for a drought,” Mr Schodde said.
“Now we’re really hoping we will be able to strip the crop without losing quality because this really is a record year.”
