SUN SMILES ON HARVESTERS
AFTER a rain-affected startstop beginning of the annual Hinchinbrook sugarcane crush, the harvest season began to ramp up at the weekend.
Speaking at his cane farm near Victoria Mill on Friday, Herbert River Canegrowers chairman Michael Pisano told the Townsville Bulletin that farmers were happy to get the season under way.
“You grow a crop, you like to harvest it,” he said.
“There was a fair bit of pessimism because the crop was down, we’ve had a series of bad crops and seasons, the price of sugar is down, so that put a downer on things, particularly with grey skies.
“But as soon as the sunshine comes out, you’ve got blue skies, spirits lift and you become optimistic … this weather will be making a lot of people happy.”
He said on Thursday, the first day of fine weather, they had loaded about 12,000 tonnes and were aiming to build steadily to peak rates of 30,000 to 33,000 tonnes of cane a day.
“I think it’s picking up — today there are a lot more harvesters going, so it will pick up again, but there were a lot of parts of the district that got quite a lot of rain,” he said.
Mr Pisano said expectations were to better last year’s flood-affected season, particularly with a small increase in the price of the sugar and opportunity for cane growers to forward price.
He said the projections were for a harvest of 4.16 million tonnes.
“With the rain we’ve had, I am starting to feel confident that we will at least cut that, if not a touch more,” Mr Pisano said.
“Before we had the rain about six to eight weeks ago, I would have not bet anything that we would have made the 4 million tonne, but now I am cautiously optimistic that we are going to have some plus on that, 4.1.”
Ideal sunny, dry and cool conditions persisted into early yesterday, helping to mature the crop and improve the comparatively low sugar content of about 10.8 to 10.9 commercial cane sugar, which would increase to as high as 14 to 16 CCS during the peak months of August to October.
The harvest is aimed to be finished by mid-november.