Farmers through southern NSW, Victoria and southern SA will be working feverishly to harvest as much grain as possible prior to the onset of another rain bearing low pressure trough from Friday night onwards. At present Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) estimates are for a widespread 15-30mm over much of south-eastern Australia over the weekend, with some models predicting further rainfall early next week. In regions such as the western Wimmera falls of up to 100mm in late November followed by cool, moist conditions meant that farmers only returned to harvest in earnest on Sunday, with moisture readings on the high side. It is a similar story in the western Riverina where storm driven rain delivered falls as high as 230mm in districts near Deniliquin. In good news for farmers, yields have generally been above anticipated in many regions and early reports are that there has not been significant quality damage from the initial rain. However, there is concern about this rain, as crops can often withstand one rain event before incurring quality damage from relatively moderate secondary events. It will mean farmers in earlier regions that managed to harvest prior to the rain may have an advantage with high grade, non-weather damaged grain. In northern Victoria Greg Toomey, Nutrien Ag Solutions Elmore, said yields had generally been good but there were concerns about quality after rain last week. "We generally had much lighter falls than others last week, around 20mm, but the falling numbers machines are out and there is concern that further rain will cause more complications," he said. "Not much has happened up until the middle of the week this week, the moisture was just OK but the cereals were very chewy and difficult to harvest." "The bad news is that quality might be knocked around on what hasn't been harvested yet and protein levels have not been particularly high, the better news is that early yields are looking OK." In the Victorian Mallee there have been some good results. "We've grown some really exceptional crops for our part of the world," said Birchip farmer Ian McClelland. "Yields have been hovering around 4-5 tonnes a hectare, previously we'd be lucky to do that on an isolated paddock, it really has been a good result, we'd now love to get the rest of harvest completed without incident." Further south in the Wimmera there are still significant volumes to harvest, with farmers there most exposed to the threat of wet weather. In the southern Wimmera growers are only just pulling into cereals with some tonnages of canola still to come in. Canola has been a star performer, with widespread yields in excess of 3t/ha, pushing up to 4t/ha or above in a number of paddocks. In early news on the cereals front, yields are good, but protein is also down. Across the border, farmers in South Australia's MId North will be able to enjoy the rain as a boost to their subsoil moisture profiles, with harvest largely completed. Tarlee farmer Mark Hill was pulling into his final paddock of wheat on Tuesday afternoon. "We've had a very good harvest generally, there were patches in the Mid North there were issues with frost but luckily it happened a bit late to do significant damage to us," he said. "There have been some really good wheat yields in the area, around that 4-5t/ha mark and people have probably been pleasantly surprised overall given the dry spring." "Legumes were probably slightly more mixed, but for me crops like field peas, that got too wet last year, actually did better." At Hamley Bridge, Adrian McCabe said it had been a successful season. "We were lucky enough to dodge the heavy frosts that ran up the Gilbert Valley and caused significant damage to not only grain crops but grapes," he said. "We got crops going early and tapped into subsoil moisture and we're really pleased with the results given the dry second half of the growing season." "Having good soils really showed up in allowing those crops like the cereals and canola to push down into moisture and finish off in spite of a lack of in-crop rain." "Things like the lentils battled a bit, they seem a little more reliant on spring rainfall."