Tableland, Babinda, Innisfail and Tully December 2011
The 2011 crush has proven to be another disastrous crush for the district. Cropping has been poor with paddocks cutting as low as five tonnes per acre with the average rounding out at sixteen to eighteen tonnes per acre. This is a direct result of the poor growing conditions of 2010, with the added effects of cyclone Yasi. The Mulgrave and tableland regions have fared a lot better with the tablelands showing little downside compared to their coastal cousins.
Replanting of cane has all but finished as farmers took advantage of a dry September and first half of October. With above average day-time temperatures the paddocks were showing the effects of the dry. That was until the region received up to a metre of rainfall in the week starting 16 October, damaging plant crops with washouts from 10% in some paddocks and up to 75% damage along river flats in the hardest hit regions.
Ratoons are coming away well and are showing good recovery from the wet and wild spring and summer of 2010-11. Plantation floristries that were decimated in Cyclone Yasi have been bulldozed and the properties are in the process of being sold or leased with an opportunity to be returned to sugarcane cultivation.
South Johnstone crushed 678,965 tonnes at 11.33 CCS.
Tully Sugar crushed 1.158 million tonnes at 11.97 CCS
Tableland mill crushed 644,879 tonnes at 14.5 CCS.