Grain growers across Queensland are entering the pointy end of the season, as many grapple with the myriad of challenges posed by a particularly high-pressure harvest period.
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Uncertainty surrounding wet weather, storage and transport seem to be a common concern in all regions, including those on the Western and Darling Downs who are preparing for harvest in the coming weeks.
Chinchilla grower and GRDC northern panel chair Arthur Gearon said the crops were looking "really promising", but farmers on the Downs were "intimidated" by the looming weather forecast, considering the positive yield predictions, solid prices and high input costs throughout the season.
"Usually we'd be well and truly into harvest by now, or finishing up, but with all the wet weather, it's really held on this season so it should be ripening in the next week or two," he said.
"We're expecting really big yields, but I guess the intimidating factor is just the irregularity of the weather events at the moment. It looks like we've got a pretty wet harvest ahead of us.
"A lot of people are trying to plant cotton at the same time, so it's just a really, really busy period for everyone.
"The cereals are pretty valuable this year as well, so everyone's pretty keen to get it off."
Mr Gearon said growers were also concerned with the lack of storage and transport options available.
"With these bigger crops, trucking and logistics is going to be the pain, depending on how much people can store on farm and how much they can get into the system," he said.
"We've got a big challenge ahead, but it's a good problem to have, having so much grain, so that's what's keeping everyone smiling.
"Everyone knows when you get these opportunities, you've got to strike while the iron is hot, but trying to get all the work done has been difficult, particularly with trying to find employees and input prices skyrocketing.
"It's just been a very difficult period, but all we can do is keep chipping away at it to get this crop off. I think there'll be a lot of happy people, but there's a lot of work between now and then."
Growers in central Queensland have been plagued by heavy storms throughout their staggered harvest period.
The Bowman family, Gindie, are currently half way through their wheat harvest and are yet to start on their chickpea crop after the deluge that hit the area during October.
Joella Bowman said they would try to salvage what they could for cattle feed after their crops copped a beating in recent weeks.
"I think the rain affected everyone, a lot of people like us had only just started to harvest before the rain," she said.
"The quality was good before the rain but we have been downgraded since, now we're just trying to get it off before the rain pulls us up again."
Ms Bowman also said that the closure of depots in the region was causing chaos for growers, particularly given the unprecedented volumes of grain being produced.
"The biggest hold-up is the grain depot, only Yamala is open at the moment so there is a serious influx of trucks and they can't keep up," she said.
"It can take up to six hours for one truck to unload and return some days."
GrainCorp Queensland regional operations manager Brad Foster said their CQ cluster of sites had taken over 320,000t of grain so far this harvest, with Yamala receiving over 100,000t.
"Unfortunately the recent wet weather events have created disruptions, including restricting our capacity to create more segregations on site," he said.
"We're busy outloading as much grain as possible from this part of the network to manage the crop as well as create capacity for these extra grades.
"We've also re-opened our sites at Gindie and Dingo for the first time in several years to make room, but these have now filled and closed.
"We're still creating capacity for more receivals by building additional bunker storage at Yamala and Biloela.
"We'll also re-open our site at Emerald in the coming week, which will add up to 40,000t of storage."
Mr Foster said they had taken almost 30,000t around the Darling Downs, Western Downs and Goondiwindi.
