Harvest yield surprises

AgForce grains president Wayne Newton said while overall production was down, some producers had achieved yields above what they had been expecting.

He said while it had been a particularly dry year, the rain that did fall had come at the critical stages of crop development.

"The August fall of rain was absolutely opportune timing. And the early part of spring stayed quite

mild without an early belting of high temperatures," he said.

"The other side of it is that prices have stayed strong, fuelled by the uncertainty of the summer crop."

Along the NSW/Queensland border, Total Ag Services agronomist at Goondiwindi Tom Dowling said while the situation had appeared dire throughout the season, many wheat crops ended up yielding much better than expected.

"Rain in September improved the yields of the crop and, with reasonable commodity prices, instead of looking like a below-average year the crop has turned out not too bad for a lot of growers," he said.

"Quality was quite good but protein was down, which was understandable considering the dry season and limited root development in a lot of areas. The grades were okay but not a lot of prime hard."

Mr Dowling said it wasn't so rosy for chickpeas, which had appeared to be travelling well but failed to reach yield expectations.

"Chickpeas looked to be hanging on better than wheat through the season due to their taproot compared to wheat's fibrous root. But they copped some late frost damage and ran out of moisture in the end," he said. "Yields were slightly down on what the crops looked like they would produce, but still produced an average season."

In central Queensland, Emerald consultant Graham Spackman said it had been a below-average year for both wheat and chickpea yields.

"It was a dry season and we didn't have much subsoil moisture. Crops varied from barely harvestable through to close to average. But for most people they were way below average," he said.

With harvest all but wrapped up, national agricultural commodities forecaster ABARES estimates Queensland's overall winter crop fell 15 per cent this year to 1.4 million tonnes. This coincides with a 1pc drop in the area planted to 1.1 million hectares, which is the lowest level since 2007-08.

Meanwhile, National Australia Bank agribusiness general manager Khan Horne said lower forecast domestic production, combined with a falling Australian dollar and mixed hay-cutting season, had lent some support to Australian wheat prices since late September.

"Price premiums for wheat are expected to be supported coming into summer due to likely higher local feed grain demand resulting from disappointing spring pasture growth in many areas," he said.

Mr Horne said international wheat prices had recovered slightly from their September lows but were still well down on the May 2014 peak. Prices have trended upwards partly in response to a move by the US Department of Agriculture to lower its estimate for 2014-15 wheat production by 1.3mt, as well as cold weather in the US," he said.

"If the US experiences an unseasonably cold winter, Hard Red Winter wheat yields may be reduced."

Pentag Nidera trader Steve Sloss, Toowoomba, said Australia's northern wheat markets continued to be driven by stockfeed demand.

"Wheat values in Queensland and northern NSW continue to trade at a significant premium to export parity," he said. "Northern wheat values will be influenced by local barley and sorghum values.

"The comparatively flat global corn market combined with the prospect of rain benefiting the sorghum crop may keep a lid on values over the near term."

Mr Sloss said demand for wheat and barley from Darling Downs buyers extended well into the central west region of NSW and beyond.

"We've been running the slide rule across loading South Australian and Western Australia wheat to supply to the Queensland stockfeed market and clearly any rally in the south and the west will lessen the chance of this working," he said.