THE FAIRYTALE finish to the season in Western Australia last year after a horrendous opening shows it can happen, but the odds are now stacked against the Australian crop exceeding average levels.
James Maxwell, of Australian Crop Forecasters, said while his company’s official forecasts are still at close to average levels downgrades would be extremely likely.
“We’ve got a figure of 24.6 million tonnes for wheat, which is around about average but if we don’t see some opening rain soon you would expect that figure to come back.”
Last year’s Australian wheat crop was around 21m tonnes according to most crop monitors, which was the lowest for eight years.
Mr Maxwell said the law of averages was against Aussie croppers this year.
“There’s been no true autumn break, there have been bits and pieces in some areas but nothing significant.”
“Only coastal Western Australia is likely to see significant rain in the next week, which means we move very close to June without a true break in many areas.”
“It’s below average rainfall virtually everywhere you look and while the date of the break may often not be until relatively late, the data also shows the years with late breaks are generally lower yielding.
“For most areas, the historical data shows any break later than mid May sees a yield penalty.”
However, even in dry areas planting is progressing.
Gavin Tom, secretary of the Parkes / Forbes branch of NSW Farmers, said in his area, one of the driest parts of the country, farmers were generally still planting crop.
“I personally haven’t sown anything but lots of others have stuck to their rotation with only minor adjustments,” Mr Tom said.
“People are dropping crops that require a bit more moisture such as Monola (a proprietary form of canola owned by Nuseed) for lower risk, shorter season crops, but there is definitely still crop going in.”
Mr Maxwell acknowledged the bulk of hectares would still be planted, but said ACF was already factoring in some lost hectares due to non-planting and added other sub-par crops would not be sprayed out but would not receive the inputs necessary to target average yields.
“We’ll see people move from longer season crops like canola to shorter season ones like barley where possible, but it is not always something you can get done.”
“Farmers will accept they are going to have a poor crop and just let it go and see what happens if there are no other options for a late sown crop.”
Mr Maxwell said there had been some chatter around the industry of a wheat crop as low as 15m tonnes, but said at this stage it was impossible to forecast such a low number.
“It obviously could happen, it is still the start of the season but it’s a bit early to lock in the Doomsday scenario as we saw last year in WA.
“However, there is not a lot out there in terms of stored moisture or long term forecasts to get overly excited about.”
Mr Tom said following falls of 7-15mm over the past fortnight farmers in his area were concerned about a false break, where crops germinate but die.
“In some ways it could be better to be sowing completely dry.”
He said while it was dry all over some farmers had a slight advantage.
“There were patchy summer storms, and farmers who sprayed summer weeds have some subsoil moisture.”