While little bits of harvest have been done here and there, there are a few farmers getting itchy feet as they wait for the sun to shine, arable industry grains vice-chair Brian Leadley says.
“It’s a case of grey overcast days, the ground is full of moisture from the rain over Christmas and New Year, and that’s holding humidity levels up,” he said.
“There’s been a handful of harvesters going in earlier – grass crops and a bit of dryland cereal done, but that’s about it.
“We need to see the sun with some heat in it all day.”
Seed storage and dressing companies are reporting little crop delivered, many nothing, as yet.
If the conditions come right from now, Leadley expects it could be a very tight harvest with the pressure coming on machinery in a short window of opportunity.
“I’m still comfortable harvest is looking to be good, but clover and crops such as rape on the ground now, really do need to see the sun,” he said.
Most other crops are not coming to any real harm just yet.
“Summer usually comes somewhere in the season, we just hope that’s very soon,” he said.
“There is a lot of harvest capacity about – when the weather does come right, it will get done quickly and if we get the weather right, it’s still looking to be a reasonable harvest.
“Most crops are holding well in the meantime.”
Looking for the blue sky and waiting for the sun is frustrating, Mid-Canterbury cropper Andrew Fisher says.
“We got the fescue done okay, but we’ve got Nui on the ground, cut now and past ready to get off the ground – these overcast days are not playing the game,” Fisher said.
He says the Christmas rain has taken the edge of what could have been particularly good yields.
“Crops were looking good, we had high expectations, but that rain with no sun is really doing some damage,” he said.
“The Nui is disappointing, we’ll be lucky if we get even an average yield, it’s not coming off as the crop looked.
“Hopefully this is not an indicator of what the rest of the harvest is going to be.
“There’s a bit of sprout in the clover, we lost the early flowers with the rain, so we are relying on the second flowering now and there’s a bit of late disease coming on the heads in the wheat.”
It is early days yet for the vegetable seed crops and potatoes, but they are looking good at this stage.
“We don’t want any more rain, we want to see clear sky and sun all day,” Fisher said.
Down the road in South Canterbury it’s a mixed bag with the weather bringing in some crops much earlier than expected.
The dry winter and first half of spring, followed by 80ml of rain over Christmas and New Year, is playing out on the harvest, Federated Farmers arable industry chair Colin Hurst says.
“We started in ryegrass on New Year’s Day – that would be the earliest ever, but that’s the impact of the dry earlier,” Hurst said.
While ryegrass crops have certainly taken a hit, the oil seed rape has gone all right.
“We got four tonnes to the hectare, so I’m pretty happy with that considering how dry it’s been,” he said.
“Winter wheat is going to be 10 days earlier than normal, we should be in that this week if the sun is out, but I expect that will be 20% back on yield and that’s the result of the dry.”
Reports of winter barley have surprisingly gone all right at eight to 10 tonne a hectare.
But it has been devastating for the farmers struck by the hail.
“There are farmers who have lost up to 90% of oil seed rape that was on the point of harvest,” Hurst said.
“The hail belt hammered about seven farmers, severely damaging brassica crops and wheat with expected losses up to 20%.
“We (Feds) and the rural support trust are offering support to these farmers, it’s just been so devastating for a few of them.”
