EARLY season storms that swept southern Queensland during the course of the last week have left harvest prospects balanced on a knife-edge.
The falls ranged from dust-dampening sprinkles to a more satisfying 50mm for those lucky enough to score a top-up for their increasingly thirsty crops.
They offered some relief from a recent unseasonal burst of hot, dry weather that severely impacted the central Queensland winter grain crop, one which also saw a downgrading in the potential of southern Queensland’s fast-looming harvest.
Speaking from his Pampas property, AgForce Grains president, Lyndon Pfeffer detailed how his crops had received a miserly 6mm last Friday, only another 8mm earlier this week.
“So, from our perspective, that’s on the light-on side but other areas did benefit by scoring falls between 30 to 50mm,” Mr Pfeffer said.
“If you got 50mm, that would have done a lot of good,” he added.
With the southern Queensland crop coming into head, Mr Pfeffer says it is in a crucial stage in terms of improving its harvest prospects as the storm season gets into its stride.
“Those who get them will be lucky and benefit and those who miss out will just look on,” he said.
Executive Officer, Queensland Agricultural Merchants, Mel Binnington said last week’s falls were “patchy”, principally benefiting the eastern Darling Downs, quickly tailing off inland.
“Most of the crops further west are getting close to being beyond assistance from rain,” he said.
Speaking to a Condamine-based farmer earlier this week, Mr Binnington said the producer hadn’t even bothered to measure the little rain that fell and was “pretty despondent” about his crops, believing they continue to struggle.
From a Queensland perspective, the QAM’s executive director said the state’s southern harvest could turn out to be “quite poor,” principally because it already was acknowledged the CQ harvest was “not good,” either.
“But as you come east (towards the Downs) there are some better crops – but it’s patchy with some areas OK, others less so,” Mr Binnington said.
Meanwhile, Ag Commodity Trading’s John Francis says price expectations remain weak with wheat trading at $209/t, based on Adelaide prices in the light of more useful rains falling across the southern states.
“The buyers believe the rain might have saved their crops but farmers are less optimistic,” he said.
Factoring in lower prices, also yields in the order of one tonne/acre, Mr Francis says farmers are telling him they “can’t survive” at these levels.
“The big problem is the quality issue arising from ‘pinched’ wheat due to that hot August,” he said.
“That means a grower could lose another $20t/$30t, so instead of getting Prime Hard wheat, they get discounted wheat.”
On the upside, Mr Francis says Queensland probably is on track to deliver a million tonne-plus wheat harvest, pointing out that input costs have come down.
“It’s all very frustrating when we had good prices (last year) and a chance for farmers to pay off some debt and move forward, all input costs went through the roof,” he said.
But with the Queensland wheat crop expected to yield only between half a tonne/acre to one tonne/acre, realising between $120/acre to $130/acre, all this makes for some frugal-looking returns for this season’s winter crop wheat harvest.
Nevetheless, GrainCorp’s Queensland regional manager, David Titterton, still is talking up this year’s winter crop harvest, pointing to some “pretty good” falls from Miles, west through to Roma, also Meandarra district, with some benefits also realised between Goondiwindi and Thallon.
“That’s all good cropping country with some big acres out there and up until the rain, it was starting to struggle a little bit,” he said.
“The early crops were looking very good but the later crops couldn’t get their roots down,” Mr Titterton added.
GrainCorp’s Queensland regional manager says much depends on getting a mild finish if crops are to deliver their yield potential.
“If we get a mild finish it could be pretty good,” Mr Titterton said.
As well, he made the point that growers who received useful falls might start to think about summer crop prospects.
“Those who did get under the bigger falls have the potential to get their summer crops away,” Mr Titterton said.
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