OAKENDEN HARVESTING COMPANY PTY LTD: DELIVERING HARVESTING BEST PRACTICE

OAKENDEN HARVESTING COMPANY PTY LTD, a cooperative harvesting group supplying an average of 53 500 tonnes annually to Mackay Sugar, has always searched for innovation in harvesting. This business was one of 15 harvesting groups, which participated in the successful SRDC-supported ‘Improved Harvesting Efficiency Project’ which ran between 1999 and 2002. Oakenden Harvesting’s manager, Joe Muscat, has, from the beginning, sought to make the business as efficient and effective as possible. This has been achieved through accurate record keeping, trial work evaluating different operating techniques and modifications and adoption of appropriate new technology and methods. Manual record keeping started in 1983 and evolved to make use of Queensland Mechanical Cane Harvesters Association (QMCHA) Log Book which Joe later helped redesign. Automatic record keeping using the Harvesting Best Practice data logger initially and then later the Big Mate system have shown wide applications for harvest and transport performance evaluation. The business has also found the BSES Harvest Transport Model useful for matching haulout capacity to haul distance and harvester capacity. Record keeping and data analysis has enabled the calculation of harvest cost for each block on every farm in the group. Cost of harvesting varied enormously from year to year between 1996 and 2002, ranging from $4.57/t to $7.74/t. Variation between blocks within and across farms is even larger. These data could be used to enable differential charging, although several barriers to this application have been identified. Accurate information on financial position is something many harvesting businesses lack, and this situation has weakened the harvesting sector and caused poor performance on farms. Harvester innovations employed provided a range of benefits, some of which include: reduced stool damage in lodged cane, stone rejection, increased basecutter blade life and performance, better chopper performance and blade life extended from 1800 to 3300 tonnes under the same conditions, reduced extractor losses and increased elevator delivery rate. This paper also proposes some potential changes to the farming, harvesting and delivery system, which could improve industry profitability.