Winter wheat harvest set to exceed expectations

Winter wheat harvesting is in full swing across the Western Cape, with the harvest looking better than anticipated, despite various challenges throughout the season. It is expected that production for the 2018 season will amount to 2,37 million tons, which is 0,23% higher than the previous estimate, according to the Crop Estimates Committee’s (CEC) fourth crop forecast for winter grain.

This season, malting barley emerged as the star of winter grains, exceeding 400 000t, which is the largest harvest since 2010.

GOOD WEATHER FAVOURED MALTING BARLEY

Current expectations were for a malting barley crop of 401 840t, which is 1,39% or 5 500t more than the previous forecast of 396 340t, the CEC report said.

Andries Theron, the chairperson of Grain SA’s winter cereals committee, attributed this year’s yield for malting barley to favourable climatic conditions, especially in the Southern Cape region, and the genetic development in malting barley. “Genetic development over the past few years has enabled growers to realise high malting barley yields. This is the result of development that unfortunately surpassed the wheat industry,” he said.

The CEC left the production estimate for wheat and canola unchanged at 1,86 million tons and 115 500 tons, respectively.

“The wheat and canola industry experienced an interesting production season this year. We are a little disappointed in this year’s wheat since the wheat [crop] that was recorded in the fields, was not realised,” said Theron. He told Farmer’s Weekly that canola did generally well, but wind damage had a negative impact on the harvest and he suspected that was why the forecast for canola was left unchanged. –

Jeandré van der Walt ABOVE:The winter wheat harvesting process is in full swing across the Western Cape, with malting barley emerging as the star of this year’s winter grains.