Wind and showers cause harvest delays but little damage at this stage

Heavy rain fell sporadically across NSW, headlined by tornados that tore through central west districts such as Trangie and Nevertire.

GrainCorp, in its weekly harvest update, reported some low level impact from weather to receivals, but said across the board things were still going well.

The bulk handler took 1.5 million tonnes for the week to Monday, compared to 1.4m tonnes the week before, however this week coming could be lower due to the delays.

Ryan Milgate, a farmer in the eastern Wimmera in Victoria, said on Tuesday he anticipated having close to five days enforced lay-up.

"We last got going Saturday morning and while I'm going to take a sample of the barley soon it is more in hope than the belief it will be right," Mr Milgate said.

"More realistically it will probably be tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon before we get going again," he said.

Graeme Wood, harvesting with his brother-in-law, Gerard Bardell just west of Horsham, said rain and wind had similar delayed getting back into lentils but said the farm looked to have escaped the worst of the strong winds that hit Horsham city causing significant damage.

The southern halves of NSW and WA, along with Victoria and South Australia, are now the primary focuses of harvest, with northern areas nearing completion.

While weather in the north has been setting records for heat it has been a different story in the south, with the cold and wind delaying harvest.

Hamilton, in southern Victoria, where harvest is just beginning, is yet to record a day above 24 for all of December so far, which has combined with light rainfall of between 5-15mm in the state's cropping regions to keep headers parked up.

However Mr Milgate, Victorian Farmers Federation grains council for Wimmera, said the delays were not causing major concerns.

"There is no serious rain predicted for the next week once we do get going, nor any particularly hot weather, so we'd hope to get a pretty good run at it when we do get going."

He said he was pleased to have finished lentils and canola before the wind got up over the weekend.

"Those are the two crops you'd be most worried about blowing out of the pod, there have been a few saying barley might have blown a bit but we don't think it will be a massive problem."

He said lentils and canola had yielded above expectations, but he expected barley to be not as good comparatively.

"Barley was tillering during the dry period at the end of winter and was struggling a bit, we expect the wheat to do better out of the cereals," he said.

In NSW, Bruce Watson, Grains Research and Development Corporation northern panel member and Parkes region farmer, said it had been a frustrating week, with 16-18mm across his farm.

However, he said there had been much heavier falls elsewhere in the Central West.

"There were some who copped it but hopefully for most people it will be more of a nuisance than a big quality hit," Mr Watson said.

He said it had been a solid harvest, but said wheat was slightly disappointing when compared to the potential early in the season.

"There was heavy rain at the end of October that I thought would be too early to do any damage but it looks like it hasn't helped, along with a little frost it has just knocked that top end off yields."