Australia: Rain ignites quality concerns in New South Wales, Victoria

Rain interruptions to harvest across south-eastern Australia have bumped up values in the south as a few trade shorts put up their hands.

While wheat delivered Downs has dropped $5 per tonne since last week, barley generally has firmed, as has northern barley.

The rally reflects the grower’s mission to harvest as much as possible ahead of this rain, and either warehouse or store grain on-farm as canola and pulses continue to corral the cash-crop sales.

Table 1: Indicative prices in Australian dollars per tonne.

A dry week across Queensland’s grain-growing areas has allowed harvest to finish on many farms.

Despite at least 300 trucks being dedicated to the task of getting chickpeas into Brisbane to ships loading now or soon, feedgrain traders report the wheels can be found to shift wheat and barley for prompt needs.

“The domestic market got a little bit quiet because of transport when you couldn’t get rubber under anything; that’s changed now,” one trader said.

Recent rain has been ideal for sorghum, and harvest is expected to start in the New Year, well ahead of normal thanks to winter rain that allowed many growers to get an early start on planting.

Container packers are still busy on current-crop sorghum to China, and chickpeas going to South Asia, and will see volume ramp up once new-crop sorghum hits, when the bulk and boxed chickpea program will still be going full tilt.

Traders generally have noted the grower’s lack of interest in selling new-crop wheat and barley.

“I’m a bit surprised growers are not thinking about storage tied up with wheat and barley, we will have new-crop sorghum by mid-January easy.

“If we run into issues with delivering sorghum…where are they going to put it?”

Rain is forecast for the northern growing region, where only the Liverpool Plains has considerable area left to harvest, and 15-40mm of rain, and more in places, is forecast for coming days.

GrainCorp already has falling numbers machines in use at selected sites across northern NSW following recent rain.

“We had a good run of clear, dry weather and most of the crop had come in before this rain, but where grain might be affected, we’re using these tests to try to give growers the best grade for their grain,” a GrainCorp spokesperson said.

Robinson Grain wheat trader Jock Benham said growers across NSW were racing to finish all they can before the rain.

“They’re not too interested in marketing; they’re interested in capturing quality,” Mr Benham said.

Rain in recent days has already stopped activity on some farms, with plenty still to be harvested in parts of the Riverina and slopes.

“The wheat market’s lifted a little bit on to the Downs due to the lack of sellers; everyone’s focused on selling chickpea and canola.

Some container and bulk sites in central NSW are full, or close to it, as chickpeas and faba beans get the early run of shipping slots.

In Toowoomba, emergency services attended a small fire at the Ridley Agriproducts site at Harristown on Monday.

In a statement, Ridley said the fire occurred while a contractor was working in an amenities area of the site.

“Safety procedures were activated, emergency services were called and the site was evacuated.

“The fire was swiftly extinguished.

“An ambulance transported one person suffering burns and another with smoke inhalation to the local hospital.”

Ridley has advised that operations have since returned to full capacity, and there has been no impact on customers or production.

Rain has hampered harvest in southern NSW and Victoria this week, and more is forecast.

Some growers in southern NSW have finished harvest, while others have been caught generally more than halfway through.

Rainfall registrations in the week to 9am today include: Cootamundra 7mm; Deniliquin 31mm; Lake Cargelligo 16mm; Temora 10mm, and West Wyalong 13mm.

More is falling today in many places.

Peters Commodities trader Peter Gerhardy said some parts of southern NSW have had rain on and off since Sunday.

“With the rain we’ve had, it’ll have to have some impact on quality,” Mr Gerhardy said.

“We all can appreciate it’s not the rain, it’s the time it hangs around.”

While some growers have had pleasant surprises in the yield department after a dry and frost-affected growing season, plenty of others are having yields come in below already lowered expectations.

“A lot of growers are telling me they look like 5t/ha stubbles and they’re harvesting 2.5t/ha.”

Mr Gerhardy said barley quality to date has surprised on the high side, with malt selection being higher than normal, and many growers happy to warehouse it to get it off farm.

Although frost obliterated some grains in the head in many barley crops, screenings and testweights are yet to emerge as an issue.

Mr Gerhardy said some growers have taken the unusual step of harvesting some canola, and moving on to cereals if the oilseeds’ yield was extremely low, say in the 0.5-1t/ha range, as a result of frost damage.

He said wheat protein has been a highlight of the southern harvest to date, generally at the expense of yield.

“Some guys that have never grown protein in their lives have got protein this year.

“They might normally get 5-6t/ha of ASW, and it could be 2-2.5t/ha of a higher grade.”

Vic quality is the one to watch.

Some parts of the Mallee and Wimmera have had a lot of rain in the past week, and many have had 10-20mm, with showers forecast into next week.

Registrations at the higher end include: Birchip 51mm; Rupanyup 41mm; Walpeup 66mm; Werrimull 98mm, and Woomelang 56mm.

Traders generally have noted that ASW is forming a lower-than-normal proportion of the southern crop, which coupled with eastern South Australia’s terrible year, could have southern consumers booking tonnage from West Wyalong north to fill their needs.

At present, consumers are sitting on their hands to see if the rain throws up big parcels of off-spec grain, possibly with some sprouting and high protein.

Tags: Australia, harvest, barley, wheat, chickpeas, crop, sorghum, rain