THE grain harvest has started at Millicent with grain handler Viterra receiving its first loads into the site last week.
Canola from the local Gilbertson family has made up the first deliveries into Millicent for the 2017/18 cropping season.
The timing of the arrival of the first load is on a par with previous years and is more than three months after South Australia’s first grain was delivered to Port Pirie.
Anecdotal evidence suggests some growers in the Millicent district are again storing their grain in silos on their properties.
Tantanoola cereal grower Greg Altschwager expects it will be another two weeks before harvesting begins on his broad acre property.
“We should be starting in January,” Mr Altschwager said.
Around half of the area he cultivates is sown to wheat with the remainder given over to canola (10pc) and broad beans (40pc).
Mr Altschwager anticipates the yields and prices for his wheat and canola will be satisfactory but holds concerns for his crop of broad beans.
This will be his 42nd consecutive harvest and a portion of his land has been in the Altschwager family for generations.
His family home marks its centenary this year having been built by his forebears in 2017.
A similar set of circumstances applies to Graham Sapiatzer whose family has worked the land at Sebastopol since colonial times.
Like Mr Altschwager, his number of harvests now exceeds 40.
“Our wheat will be ready in the new year,” Mr Sapiatzer said.
Viterra eastern region operations manager Jo Klitscher said Millicent, Wolseley and Frances were the last areas of SA to get started on their harvest.
“The recent warmer weather will allow local growers to get a good run at harvest and we expect deliveries to be steady into these sites now,” Ms Klitscher said.
“Across the state, it has been a very stop-start season with the rain and we have been extending opening hours to ensure growers can get their crops delivered before weather events.
“We have also opened additional segregations to handle a range of quality characteristics and allow growers to potentially capture higher value.”
Nearly 800,000 tonnes of grain have been received into the eastern region, contributing to the 4.1 million received across the Viterra network so far.
Deliveries into the Millicent silos are expected to peak in early January.
