Tasmanian poppy harvest for Extractas Bioscience one to forget

The latest poppy harvest is “significantly down” from previous years.

Poppy growers around the state have wrapped up their harvests, with Extractas Bioscience Field Officer Noel Beven saying they would have liked to see a larger percentage of crops perform better.

“The wind in the springtime made spraying extremely difficult for herbicide and fungicide control,” Mr Beven said.

“The growers did a fantastic job of utilising the suitable windows that they were presented with to get the job done.

“But even water application was difficult in the wind, particularly with an emphasis on gun irrigation rather than pivot irrigation.

“Challenging is the term that we’d allocate to this year.”

Mr Bevan said that it was a late season.

“We were a fortnight late on average and about three weeks later than normal.

“The weather created some other issues, including late weed growth and short harvest days.

“A lot of the time, we weren’t starting until two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and we were finished by seven.

“It was a highly unusual summer period.”

In two years, Extractas Bioscience has increased its growing area from 3500 to 7000 hectares.

“We’re fully cognizant of the pressures that farmers are under, and particularly, the mental stress this last season,” Mr Beven said.

“Most people say they’ve seen a season like it.

“It was too dry, then it was too winding, then it was too windy- and remained too windy – before becoming too dry.

“They’ve had a lot of what I call two pressures.”