Rain drenched dry eastern parts of the Australian wheat belt on Thursday and Friday, ensuring the survival of thirsty crops as harvesting started in patchy northern areas.
Grain handlers said it was the best rain since the beginning of the year. Months of dry weather had left much of Australia's big winter grains crop hanging on a knife-edge.
"So far, although the timing hasn't been perfect, it has kept coming. After the next couple of days ... we'll be in a fair degree of certainty," Mario Falchoni, spokesman for Australia's eastern grains handler and storer GrainCorp Ltd, told Reuters from Gilgandra, 350 km (220 miles) north-west of Sydney in the northern New South Wales wheat belt.
"Pretty happy about the rain. Looking at the puddles by the side of the road at the moment," he said.
The view was echoed by wheat exporter AWB Ltd.
"Northern crops are pretty much made now so this will help finish those off. It is certainly beneficial for the crops in NSW," spokesman Ryan McKinlay said.
"AWB's still quite comfortable with the range of its forecast of 21-24 million tonnes. Good rain in NSW will certainly consolidate crops in that state."
A spokeswoman for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said rain had fallen right across central and northern parts of the major crop growing state of NSW.
Best rain fell in a central band from the western parts of the wheat belt to the coast, with 56 mm (2.2 inches) falling on Taree on the central coast in the 24 hours to Friday morning, 50 mm (2.0 inches) on Condobolin in the central west, and 23 mm (0.9 inches) further south on Cowra.
On the northern edge of the best falls, Walgett, in the north of the state, received 6.2 mm (0.2 inches), while to the south on the Victorian border Albury had less than 10 mm (0.4 inches).
Rain was consolidating the crop as it went into harvest, although some areas were still on a knife-edge, Falchoni said.
An unchanged pre-rain forecast by GrainCorp this week of 13 million tonnes for all winter grains was based on average rainfall being received through to harvest.
"So far we're getting it," Falchoni said on Friday. "At the moment we're on track."
Falchoni said grain had started to arrive at GrainCorp silos from the early harvest in Queensland.
"We'll be in the thick of it fairly soon," he said.
On the other main threat facing the crop, from a plague of locusts, Falchoni said it was expected that there would be some damage, but that hatchings were largely under control with spraying taking place as the insects hatched.
Hatchings have occurred on a 1,000 km (620 miles) roughly north/south front through central New South Wales, and spraying measures are underway to try to kill the locusts before they are ready to fly in a couple of weeks. The outbreak has been described as the worst in 30 years, although some authorities say it is only this bad in certain areas.
"The feedback we've got is that it is of concern, but it's not something people think they can't manage," he said.
AWB's McKinlay said locusts could hit some areas.
"From a national perspective, we wouldn't expect that to have a major impact. We're monitoring," he said.
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