The difficult 2010 sugarcane harvest in Australia: causes, effects and learnings.

The 2010 sugarcane harvest in Australia was severely disrupted by wet weather in the usually drier and peak maturity spring months. Rainfall in each month between September and December was unlikely to be exceeded 10 to 20% of years of record for most mill zones. Lost harvesting time to wet weather meant that approximately 25% of the crop was not harvested before the mills closed with the onset of the traditional summer wet season and associated uneconomic sucrose content of cane. The wet weather also had a major adverse impact on the spring planting and ratooning season, with fields being waterlogged for many weeks and fields damaged by mechanical harvest. Crop establishment was poor where planting was undertaken and management operations for application of fertiliser and weed control were either delayed or not possible. This paper explores the climate record to determine the frequency of occurrence of such years and knowledge available from climate forecasts to help recognise such seasons. Current climate forecasting tools can identify high probability of above average wet season rainfall, but reliability is not good for spring months which are crucial for the sugar harvest. Impacts on industry operations are also reviewed with a focus on priority agronomic managements to minimise the impact of an unusually wet spring – early summer period. There were also lessons about the extent to which the sugar should be forward-sold.