Getting It Right

‘Early Start, Early Finish’

‘Early start, early finish’ for the harvest season is advocated for by Queensland Cane and Renewables (QCAR), and it is the only way to avoid harvesting in December and in some years, January. Longer crushes are stifling industry growth and significantly limiting cane productivity, while decreasing profits across the value chain and the wider community.

Contributing to the reduced throughputs at mills and extending the seasons are a multitude of factors, including the weather, factory reliability, shorter maintenance seasons, labour issues and high extraneous matter lowering bin weights in green cane harvested areas.

In some cane growing regions, there has been a reluctance to start the crush due to historical norms and arrangements, making it nearly impossible to harvest crops in a timely and profit-inducive manner.

Every sector of the sugarcane industry must take a cold, hard look at this situation, so collectively we can address the critical issues driving down our productivity and profitability; especially as profit margins get tighter.

As an obvious starting point, we must stop ignoring the sound, science-based knowledge base built up over the past 50 years from both Australian and overseas studies, about harvest scheduling and its effects on the sucrose and subsequent ratooning of a crop.

We know across most Australian sugar growing districts that high November and December rainfall (as was the case in 2024) causes havoc with getting the crops to the mills and adversely impacts crop productivity in the ensuing season.

We also know the disadvantages of starting the crush earlier far outweigh the disadvantages of finishing the harvest late because of loss of sugar yield, loss of cane yields in the subsequent ratoons, and the possibility of premature ploughing out of the crop due to ratoon failure.

QCAR Herbert Committee Chair- Matthew Pappin said, “we can’t control the weather, but we can ensure that we can do our best to get crops off as early as possible.”

He said QCAR had been in discussions for quite some time with Wilmar about turning the industry around by adopting the ‘Early start, early finish’ approach to getting the crop off in a timely manner.

“The 2025 Herbert harvest season commenced on 10 June, two weeks earlier than the previous year; this is a positive step in the right direction.

“An ‘Early start, early finish’ to the harvest season is a win-win for the whole industry and the wider community,” Mr Pappin said.