With grain deliveries near completion the season is set to deliver WA growers a never seen before 27 million tonne grain haul breaking the 2022-23 season record
Growers in WA are still counting the benefits of a late high-yielding season, with previous estimates of 26.21 million tonnes already surpassed as the tally climbs closer to a record-breakingharvest receival of more than 27 million tonnes from the 2025-26 winter harvest.
The previous WA record harvest was set in season 2022-23 when the winter crop brought in 26.26 million tonnes at harvest. See harvest expectations for other states on this link.
We must wait until mid-February to see the final Grain Industry Association of WA (GIWA) final receival report for confirmation of the record haul, but the additional 1 million tonnes seemed assured and backs up the decision for some farm operations to shift away from livestock production to grain growing.
Enthusiastic plantings helped to get the 2025-26 winter crop in WA into a strong position with an estimated 9.085 million/ha sown down, just a smidgeon under the 9.166 million/ha record from season 2022-23.
With grain is still trickling into the silos, the current estimate is for 27.22 million tonnes.
What is remarkable about the result is that growers put a lot of faith in a season that simply wasn’t giving much encouragement at the vital planting window.
Growers showed strong mettle at a season start that was dry and hot. And while sleepless nights continued for growers in Southern parts, other regions received sufficient rainfall during the critical grain fill windows to support above-average yields and production.
Of course, there have been major variations across all growing regions, with some growers showing outstanding results while neighbours struggled to scrape up the tonnage.
The greatest save for the season came in the form of timely rainfall through July to September that made up for the poor starts in northern and southern cropping regions.
The rain was particularly welcome in the south, where farmers let their livestock go in favour of planting down more barley, and for season 2025-26 it was a wise choice.
With final deliveries not expected to be tallied until February 2026, the table shown below represents estimates to the end of December 2025, with grain steadily running into an estimated total record of 27.22 million tonnes.
Handling the record haul
The Kwinana port zone was saddled with handling the biggest haul of the WA winter harvest at 11.23 million tonnes, where the overall quality was described as great.
While the Albany general port zone was tasked with handling over 150,000 tonnes daily and by December had 6.39 million tonnes, already 1.7 million tonnes above the previous zone record.
Esperance in the south-east had already broken the previous record of 3.7 million tonnes in December, with a 4.45 million tonnes haul that prompted growers to rely heavily on-farm grain storage bags and silos to handle the burgeoning crop.
In the Midwest region, Geraldton port zone had already processed 4.47 million tonnes in December, taking the total deliveries at the time to 26.552 million tonnes. While an estimated 0.668 million tonnes is expected to be added across all ports to reach a record 27.22 million tonnes for the WA 2025-26 season.
GIWA Crop Report crop production estimates
