AN agricultural consultant believes he has developed a system which will provide growers even better returns than just solely using CBH's Quality Optimisation (QO) system.
After trialling its QO system at several sites in 2010, CBH made QO available at all its sites for the 2011/12 harvest.
CBH grain quality manager Mat Regan said more than 2000 growers throughout all four port zones had already used the system.
This represented about half of all WA wheat growers.
He said growers in the Geraldton zone, by the very nature of their high yielding and relatively low protein 2011/12 crops, utilised the QO system more than growers in the other port zones.
"Obviously, for almost the first time ever the bad weather affected everybody throughout the State this year," Mr Regan said.
"We had a lot of falling number machines throughout the State which helped to keep a lot of grain in the right segregation for QO eligibility.
"But there was far more grain which lost its eligibility due to falling numbers than we first anticipated before the start of harvest."
But according to Albany-based agricultural consultant Rod Grieve, a lot of hard earned dollars were lost using CBH's QO system and growers didn't know it.
Mr Grieve says he has come up with a different system to capture value, called Arbitrage.
He said most growers would try to optimise on the CBH LoadNet system and then try to Arbitrage, or load allocate, as they allocated loads to contracts or pools.
But what is the difference between QO and Arbitrage?
"QO is the blending of loads post delivery to maximise quality," Mr Grieve said.
"Arbitrage is the allocation of loads of different specifications across contracts, cash and pool choices for highest profit.
"The CBH system is handy because it can improve your returns.
"But in many cases it may tell you that you are better off optimising when in actual fact you are not.
"This means growers can now quality optimise and Arbitrage, or load allocate, simultaneously in one seamless process to ensure they receive the maximum possible return for their delivered grain."
In essence QO allowed a grower to average their quality at harvest by blending eligible loads into lots online post-delivery.
"It's a great system and CBH are to be commended that its storage and handling system is capable of such sophistication," Mr Grieve said.
"In an effort to maximise grower returns the Arbitrager computer program I developed has been upgraded to overcome the limitations identified in the CBH optimiser system.
"The program will identify, both within and between grades, the loads that require blending into lots to maximise returns from grade spread opportunities and tailor pool lots depending on the particular pool provider's quality increments.
"The amount of lots and the selection of loads to blend into the various lots is dependent on the contracts held by the grower and the grower's cash and pool decisions.
"This makes quality optimisation and load allocation a seamless process resulting in maximum returns to the grower.
"Your most profitable solution is to QO and Arbitrage at the same time."
But Mr Regan was amazed by how many growers had already used the QO system to its full potential.
He thought in the first year of the system's full roll out many growers might have been happy to get a taste of how it operated and take the time to use it properly in the 2012/13 season once they had "got their head around it."
Although he wouldn't put an exact dollar figure on the value of WA's tonnage upgrades he said out of about 9.9 million tonnes of wheat CBH had seen about 1.4mt shift grades through QO post-delivery.
"I'm sure there are growers still mixing certain loads on-farm but what we have seen from anecdotal evidence is that growers have saved up to two weeks physical work by using QO," Mr Regan said.
"Post-harvest we're really going to chase growers up to see how many on-farm savings they made."
Mr Regan said it was really important considering the rain during harvest and the need for farmers to spend every second they could on the header.
"QO also saved growers and truck drivers a lot of time at CBH receival points which is very important when there's rain coming over the horizon for the third or fourth time for a lot of growers," he said.
"They just want to get their tonnes in the bin and still get the benefit of the blending."
p The QO cut-off date in the Geraldton and Esperance zones is January 13, January 20 in the Kwinana zone and January 27 in the Albany zone. For more information on Arbitrage contact Rod Grieve on 9842 1267 or 0428 421 267.
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