AWF trims Australia wheat forecast for 2004-05

Australian Wheat Forecasters Pty Ltd cut its forecast of Australia's 2005 wheat crop by about 3 percent on Tuesday.
The private group cut the forecast for the crop year ending March 2005 to 26.45 million tonnes from estimate of 27.23 million tonnes. The new forecast would still break the 2004 record harvest of about 25 million tonnes.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, meantime, said in the day that Australia's next wheat crop would measure 23.2 million tonnes. Monopoly exporter AWB Ltd is forecasting a crop of between 21 and 24 million tonnes.
AWB said the planting of the wheat crop was going ahead in southern Australia, after being completed in Queensland, northern New South Wales and maturing northern areas in Western Australia. "Our forecast is still for a record Australian wheat crop, although some 700,000 tonnes less than our forecast issued last month," Managing Director Brian Bailey said in a statement.
Soil conditions in southern Australia, where the crop was sown or in the process of being sown, would allow sowing intentions to be completed, he said.
All wheat sowings should be finished about mid-June. "The basis of a large crop is the area sown and this component is in place," Bailey said. Soil conditions, however, had not been ideal for either sowing, or for growing later in the season, in many areas of Australia, he said.
Not all intended areas were sown in Central Queensland because of insufficient rain to wet the topsoil despite reasonable subsoil moisture. It was too late to sow here now. Sowing conditions in southern Queensland were very good, with adequate subsoil moisture and sufficient may rain.
While twice that of any of the past five years, forecast Queensland production would only return the state to its potential, with better soil moisture, Bailey said. NSW sowings were almost a million hectares greater than last year, with crops in northern and central areas sown and with northern areas showing deep subsoil moisture.
The central west received good May rains and crops were planted. Southern areas of NSW lacked subsoil moisture but late May and June rain had allowed growers to sow, the statement said.
"We expect NSW to contribute more to the next harvest than any other state." Victoria lacked subsoil moisture but recent rains had enabled growers to sow. Weekly rain through winter would be required but similar production was expected to last year.
South Australia had better May rains and was still sowing, within the optimum sowing period. In Western Australia, patchy northern rains caused 200,000 intended hectares not to be sown to wheat.
But central and southern areas had been able to be sown on time, with good yield prospects.