WEST PERTH, AUSTRALIA — Western Australian growers have delivered the fourth largest harvest in history, with 13.52 million tonnes received, CBH said on Feb. 1.

The total is around 3 million tonnes more than CBH’s 10-year average.

CBH Group General Manager Operations David Capper said this year’s final harvest figure was higher than expected.

“Inclement weather throughout harvest made it very challenging for many growers and in some regions this contributed to a reduction in yields of about 15 percent. Despite this some growers in the Southern parts of the grain growing region had higher than expected yields which raised the overall harvest figure,” said Capper.

“In the last financial year CBH invested A$153 million in the network through capital expenditure and maintenance of the network. This was possible because of the bumper years we have just had and that spend has shown its value.

“The works undertaken include the A$15 million upgrade to the Chadwick site, which included automated sampling spears and the ability to sample and weigh at the same time, speeding up discharge times.”

This year also saw rail records broken; with the largest ever amount of grain being moved by rail across WA during November, moving 693,108 tonnes. CBH also transported 8,531,430 tonnes from terminal to rail from October 2013 to September 2014, this was the all-time season record.

The total shipped from Nov. 1, 2013 to Oct. 31, 2014, was also a record amount at 13,794,735 tonnes.

“We have been really pleased with how logistics were handled this harvest. We had some challenges with the closure of Tier 3 by Brookfield Rail and the huge task of out loading the record harvest before receivals began,” Capper said. “The CBH team has worked so hard to bring this crop in through a long and at times wet harvest. I am also incredibly grateful to all growers for their support and cooperation throughout the harvest.”

While harvest has finished, a number of growers in the Esperance and Albany Zones are still delivering some small quantities of grain off farm.