HARVEST is underway across much of the state, with concerns about the affect of the dry spring on grain quality finally being realised. Unfortunately barley crops are reported to have high levels of screenings and are making low feed grades, with unease that this trend will follow with yet-to-be-harvested wheat crops.

So when looking to keep seed for next year's crop it is likely that seed size will be small and drought affected, and as this is the third tough year in a row, it will be getting harder to obtain better quality seed from other sources at a reasonable cost.

Problems that may arise with small drought affected seed include reduced seed vigour for emergence and disease tolerance. This can severely handicap the establishment of a crop and compound problems if the start to the season is less than ideal.

* Extract from a full Crop Talk in Stock Journal, November 27 issue.