Another dry start to Australia's winter crop planting season will cut the national wheat crop for the new season by over 9 percent to 22.78 million tonnes compared with 2005/06, the government forecast on Tuesday.
Widespread rainfall over eastern growing areas in mid-June had allowed some last minute planting, but crops were still vulnerable to dry conditions, forecasting unit the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said.
"Continuing dry conditions throughout autumn across most states, with the exception of South Australia, are forecast to result in the area sown to winter crops in 2006/07 declining," Brian Fisher, executive director of the bureau, said on Tuesday.
The bureau ditched an early season forecast issued in March of another big wheat crop of 24.55 million tonnes, with the new forecast just ahead of the five-year average of 21.06 million tonnes. A bumper 25.09 million tonne was harvested in 05/06.
Still, the forecast cut was not as deep as last year, when the bureau slashed its estimate after another dry planting season only to reverse it as spring rains enabled Australia to produce its second-biggest wheat crop on record.
Australia has been battling extremely dry weather for most of this decade, with the country's worst drought in 100 years in 2002/03 slashing grains production and exports. Production rebounded in later years although a recurring theme of dry weather in the planting season, from April through to June, has kept the country's grains industry on a knife-edge.
Australia is the world's second-biggest exporter of wheat and canola and the biggest exporter of barley. This year the government bureau is betting spring rains will not be as plentiful as the previous season and that key crops will come in closer to average levels.
"It's still an optimistic forecast," said analyst Ingrid Richardson of farm specialist Rabobank Australia, pointing out that dries weather still plagued Western Australia and that much depended on spring rains.
The bureau cut its forecast of Australia's total winter crops for 2006/07 by 11 percent to 36.16 million tonnes, from last season's production of 40.45 million tonnes in 2005/06.
Among the main crops, the forecast for Australia's 2006/07-barley crop was cut to 8.49 million tonnes from the previous forecast of 9.29 million tonnes and down from 9.87 million tonnes in the previous season.
The forecast for the 2006/07-canola crop was maintained at the comparatively modest level of 1.39 million tonnes, downs slightly from last season's production of 1.44 million tonnes. The bureau also said Australia's summer crop harvest was estimated to have been 15 percent higher in 2005/06 than the year before, at 4.5 million tonnes.
Production of summer crops sorghum and cotton were estimated to have fallen by around 7 percent, while rice production increased significantly because of increased water availability. However, the bureau cut its forecast for 2006/07 cotton lint production to only 481,000 tonnes, from 597,000 tonnes in 2005/06 and from its forecast in March of 617,000 tonnes.
Sorghum production for 2006/07 is forecast at 2.26 million tonnes, up from 2.02 million tonnes in 2005/06 and from the season forecast in March of 1.99 million tonnes.