WHAT IT IS LIKE TO WORK THE AUSTRALIAN WHEAT HARVEST
It will be late September when we arrive at the AG Workforce office in Toowoomba, Queensland. Here the recruitment team will sign us up and organise Combine driving jobs for the coming harvest. We have been told that some of us will work for harvesting contractors and others will work on the properties driving the farmers’ combines.
These days the combines generally range in size from 12.8 metres down to 9.1 metres in comb widths, in various makes and models but mainly John Deere, Case and New Holland combines are used. These are supported by 4wd utes as service vehicles and normally we will live in caravans if we are working with harvesting contractors. Food is usually supplied by the employer.
The wheat harvest will start in Central Queensland, 900 kilometres away from Toowoomba, and work its way down though NSW to Victoria. This will be at the end of September or early October. The moisture for the wheat needs to be 12% or below before the harvest can start. By late October the harvest will start in Southern Queensland and Northern New South Wales. The contractors will start to move south following the ripening wheat with oversized machines in convoy. Included in the circus of machinery will be service trucks with caravans in tow – our accommodation for the Australian summer.
The next stop may be based in Condamine and working within a 30km radius or it could be Meandarra, Roma, St George or even around the Goondiwindi area. Expected yields are from 0.5 to 1.5 tonnes per acre and as the days become hotter we will be harvesting into and through the night.
Our day will start with an early rise, being in the paddock soon after 6 am. Vans will often be set up on the properties where the harvesting is taking place, but sometimes they could be in the local town some distance away.
On arrival to the paddock, the night shift workers will pull in for service and then retire to their vans to sleep. It will be the day shifts turn to take over.
The machines will then be thoroughly blown down of all dust and chaff using high powered air compressors. This is done to prevent the risk of fire and also to make it easier to service the machines. They are refuelled; oils and water are checked and topped up if needed. Every moving part will be greased according to service hours. Within a few hours they should be on the move again.
Stripping anything up to 35 acres per hour, Combines follow each other and Chaser Bins empty their bins while on the move. Farm sizes range from 3,000 to 150,000 acres so a paddock (or field) will take on a whole new meaning.
We have been told that through the day we will not notice the extreme temperatures outside the air conditioned cabs. Fitted with the latest technology everything is at the touch of a button, with GPS and auto steer on most combines. At the end of the shift the combines will be fuelled up again and they are then set for the night ahead.
.jpg)
By early November the harvest will be in full swing and we should be comfortable covering 250 to 500 acres per day in 20 hours of harvesting. This routine will continue into mid-December, travelling long distances between properties, tracking down across the Queensland border into New South Wales. Southern New South Wales and Victoria will be different - gone are the flat plains, large paddocks and limitless horizons. Here crops are planted on every slope a tractor can climb.
One district which we may harvest in is a small town called Boorowa. An Irish town, most of the settlers there are of Irish descent. Flanerys, Corcorans and Ryans are a few of the many names we might harvest for. This is an area where we could spend the six weeks until the end of the wheat harvest in Southern New South Wales. The Victorian harvest will continue for maybe another two weeks.
The many different crops harvested will include wheat, barley, oats, canola, triticale and lupins. Yields will vary depending on the district/area. In some places wheat could average two tonnes per acre.
As mid-January approaches the harvesting operations will be scaled down and the contractors will prepare for the long journey, mainly heading back to Queensland for the summer crop harvest. The 1600km drive will be an adventure in itself passing through some of the most spectacular scenery that Australia has to offer.
Some combines will spend the autumn harvesting sunflowers, sorghum and other protein crops, while the others will be traded for new ones ready to start the wheat season again later in the year.
When we have completed the season from top to bottom we will have covered almost 10,000 acres. The six districts we will harvest will take our combines over two or three large states (depending on the exact route we end up on), travelling a total distance of around 3600km. When the season of combining is over, it will have given us a unique insight into this side of agri-business in Australia.
