THE 2011/12 WA harvest is set to go down as the largest on record.
As Farm Weekly went to print on Monday, CBH's receival figures sat at 14.615 million tonnes, just shy of the 14.695mt record set in the 2003/04 season.
CBH operations staff were convinced WA growers would easily break the standing record and tipped it to take place on Monday night or early Tuesday morning.
With harvest still ticking along in the more southern regions of the State CBH general manager of operations Colin Tutt said light scattered showers throughout parts of the southern coastal districts and Albany and Esperance port zones meant farmers on their headers had been held up yet again.
"(As of Monday) our records are showing that we expect about 48,000t more to be delivered before the 2011/12 harvest is officially over," Mr Tutt said.
But although it would be an exciting milestone for WA growers, Mr Tutt said the very real task of managing the harvest was now at the top of his priority list.
"Now it means CBH needs to get a record shipment out of WA every single month to clear the grain, which with our upcoming rail transition, is not probable," he said.
"We can't do it.
"It's going to be a really trying 2012.
"We need to get this crop out into the marketplace and to a level where CBH can manage another sizeable crop if it so happens in the 2012/13 season.
"It has rained in a few southern parts again today (Monday) and CBH is under a lot of pressure with shipping so although we'll be excited when we reach the record we'll all be back to the drawing board pretty quickly."
Mr Tutt said CBH had put as much of the new harvest on the market as the bulk handler thought it could physically manage until it got additional rail resources on WA tracks to help move tonnes.
CBH also looked to increase the logistics capacity of each of its port zones to cope with the mountains of harvested grain.
"It has been a double-edged sword in a sense," Mr Tutt said.
"It's pretty exciting that our growers are going to set a new record but now it's a matter of managing the harvest and getting it out of storage and into the market."
Mr Tutt said WA grain marketers would push the grain out quickly but there would still be limitations surrounding CBH's capacity and its road and rail transport task.
He said CBH continued to work with QR National to stabilise WA's grain rail freight task but it had been difficult during the last few weeks.
Emerald WA's regional trading manager Brad Gosling said although WA's shipping task would be challenging it certainly wouldn't be unachievable.
CBH's operations team had taken the initiative to increase the amount of shipping slots available, a move which Mr Gosling said was the most important step in exporting the crop and clearing the product of what had been a very good production year.
He also hoped CBH could find further logistical efficiencies once it took over control of rail logistics with its own fleet of locomotives and wagons.
"Emerald, like many other players, are hopeful that as the year goes on CBH can find the capacity to increase the shipping stem even further," Mr Gosling said.
"Certainly from a grower's point of view, the large harvest means having additional product to market and that is very positive.
"It's just one of those years where growers can put some money away for the leaner years."
Mr Gosling said although the potential record breaking harvest presented WA marketers with the challenge of selling the crop, or at least a significant part of it so it had mostly gone by next year, the harvest provided increased revenue which allowed for increased services from CBH operations and its support network.
"From a volume perspective it might yet be record setting but over the years the WA grains industry has had an increase in efficiencies and in a big year like this we get to see how far we have all progressed," Mr Gosling said.
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