Insight Focus
- This year’s winter rain has been higher than average.
- This is preventing cane harvesters from accessing fields.
- 20% of cane has been crushed, vs 30% in normal years.
What are you up to on the farm at present?
It’s been an unseasonably wet start to the crush throughout most of the sugarcane growing areas of Queensland. Winter is traditionally our dry season, but this year’s winter rain records have been higher than average, with more to come according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
The consistent rain means long days of being in the shed working on minor repairs as it is preventing the harvesters getting into the fields.
What Stage is your Cane Crop At?
It’s been a start/stop beginning to the crush for most of the mills around Queensland, and our region is no different. The MSF Sugar Mulgrave Mill started crushing again two days ago, after the wet weather stopped production, and have only crushed around 20% of the crop – in previous years the crush would have been sitting at around 30% at this time, so everyone is a little frustrated by the weather.
Another concern we have is about the crop estimation for next year, as there has been limited crop planting in the area, with not enough dry weather opportunities to get the tractor into the fields.
What are you doing differently this year?
On a positive note, my son Luke and I had a good visit from the CEO and some members of Board of the Mitr Phol Group, owners of MSF Sugar, that operate our local mills. They were touring and assessing their assets globally and arranged to talk to some growers and were particularly interested in meeting with the next generation of growers like my Luke.
We found it to be a focused and positive meeting and they reaffirmed to me their interest in continuing to grow the industry in the north of Queensland.
In the meantime, we will watch for the weather to turn and find things in the shed to keep us busy and I hope to be able to report on some sunshine next month and that the harvest is back to humming along again.
