After a complete turn around in conditions on 2019, the 2020 ASC Championship Dryland Field Wheat Competition was hotly contested with eight entrants.
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Sam and Jack Wright of "Rockley", Morongla took home the title, with the winning crop estimated to yield 7.2 tonne/hectare.
The Wright's marginally missed out on advancing to the Central and State competitions, with their cop placing sixth, while only the top five make the cut.
ASC Wheat Competition Steward, Ian Packer, said it is a challenge to judge yield predictions for the Central division, which includes Cowra.
"Crops were still very green when judged but grain was rapidly filling with the October rains," Mr Packer said.
"A few of the regular entrants did not enter as they felt their grazing wheat crops were not as good as they wanted and would not have stacked up against dedicated wheat crops.
"It must be pointed out the yield is only estimated on the days of local judging and may be different to the harvested yield.
"Most crops were filling four wide and over 60 grains per head. Extreme winds and rain did cause these high yielding crops to lodge making harvest very slow.
"Yield is the major determinate of the final score with the other factors such as trueness of type, disease, weeds and evenness only a couple of points difference between entrants."
This year's competition featured two judges, Peter Wilson of Syngenta and Mitch Dwyer of Elders.
Mr Packer offered thanks to both judges on behalf of the Cowra Show Society.
"Pete has been doing it now for a number of years and Mitch is now on the learning curve to hopefully take over the reins in years to come," he said.
"New blood is needed to ensure we have future judges."
Mr Packer said he would like to see entrants submit their true yields with costs to arrive at a gross margin.
"This would only be a local event and be a tremendous exercise to highlight good crop management and judicious use of inputs to produce the excellent crops judged this year," he said.
"This would be a great way of advertising the competition in the Cowra region for new entrants and an opportunity to have a presentation night in Cowra for a bit of fun after the impacts of COVID.
"Again thank you to all entrants and hope to see your names put forward next year. Remember you have to be in it to win it."