By Erin Tasker   January 19, 2012

Sunshine and clear skies this week have been welcomed by arable farmers waiting to harvest their bumper crops.

The Mid Canterbury harvest is about to kick into full gear, with headers already ploughing through the district’s ryegrass and winter barley crops.
Other crops, like wheat, were probably another week or two away from being ready, Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury grain and seed spokesperson David Clark said.
“Things are getting busy. We’re getting into the swing of things at the moment and the early results are good,” Mr Clark said.
Plenty of rain leading into the summer meant arable farmers had experienced one of their best growing seasons in some time and that meant yields were looking good.
Now farmers just needed the weather to continue playing along so they could reap the rewards.
“A drought up until the end of March would be just fabulous,” Mr Clark said.
And when the weather did play along, there would be plenty of heavy machinery on the road and motorists needed to be aware that some could weigh up to 20 tonne and would be travelling at around 30km/h, so they would come up on them quickly.
“It is their obligation to negotiate their way around the vehicle that is on the road,” Mr Clark said.
Harvest contractor James Doyle said he had been heading barley for the past few days as the harvest started to kick into top gear.
“It will be pretty busy from next week onwards,” Mr Doyle said.
He said barley yields were looking good this season, after not such a good year in 2010/11.