Rain lifts hopes for cereal growers

TOUGH seasonal conditions in mainland states could be good news for Tasmanian cereal growers. 

The state’s cereal and seed growers are hoping for good yields and improved prices this season after growers in some states were hit by dry conditions and late frosts causing major crop damage.

While recent rainfall caused some planting delays for spring sown crops in Tasmania, the rain has been largely beneficial for most autumn crops which are performing well.

XLD Commodities Chief executive officer John Tuskin said reports from growers so far this season have generally been positive.

He said while a small number of crops had been impacted by flooding, the damage had been limited.

“Things are shaping up reasonably well here so far,” he said.

“The cereals and canola from what I’m hearing is reasonably positive going into spring. I guess there was probably a little bit less planted in the autumn with the hope that if we did have a spring there would be more spring barley to go in so my tip would be that’s starting to happen now.”

Mr Tuskin said they would have a better indication of the overall crop size in the next month or so.

“The only thing we have had is a few people deciding whether they’re going to cut for hay because hay prices are so good,” he said.

“Cereal prices softened off over the winter but they’re starting to firm up now and I can only see them going north with the fact that Victoria and particularly the western districts are doing it pretty tough with frosts and dry weather.

“I certainly think all indications out of Victoria and flowing into South Australia is they’re going to have a pretty tough harvest,” he said. 

“Coupled with that same discussion about whether they cut to for hay, with demand for hay being so strong, it usually has a knock-on affect to what happens down here because we follow mainland prices to price grain.”

The recent rains across Tasmania have filled most on farm dams and irrigation scheme storages.

“I think we’re pretty fortunate that we copped that bit of rain in Tassie, but it wasn’t anything compared to what the others copped and we seemed to have rain right through that last month of winter which has been a bit of a saviour,” he said.

“It was looking fairly ordinary before that, but we’ve had enough rain and the sun is shining so things are looking quite positive this early.”

Northwest grain grower Michael Nichols said they had about 300mm of rain over five weeks which had caused some issues. “We went from a big deficit to a little surplus,” he said. 

“It wasn’t that much of a problem here on the north west coast, but I believe in the Midlands they did have some waterlogging.”

Overall, Mr Nichols said the crops had performed reasonably well despite some very wet and windy conditions.

“They are ticking long quite well, but there has been a little bit of weather damage some tipping and some leaf damage from hail and high winds,” he said.

“It’s still early days so though there’s still plenty of soring now going to occur and hopefully the weather will warm up a bit.” Konrad Chung from Midlands Seed said the rain had generally been beneficial.

“All the autumn sown crops are looking ok and grass-seed wise those crops are looking pretty good,” he said.

“The cereal crops have survived.” Mr Chung said they are now busy planting hemp and linseed and some pea crops. He said getting on paddocks to plant had been a challenge, but the recent dry weather had created a planting window in many areas.

“I think everyone will be pretty busy for the next week or two,” he said.

Mr Chung said the rain had also given farmers more confidence now water storages across the state were full.