Harvesting of wheat in south-eastern Australia has come to a standstill as rain keeps combine harvesters from getting into fields, raising concerns of quality downgrades. Australia's weather bureau is forecasting rain to continue this weekend, but fine weather should prevail next week, allowing farmers to get on with the 2009/10 harvest which is running around a week behind normal at about 40 percent complete.
Rains slowed harvesting in Western Australia, the country's top grain exporting state, earlier in the month before moving east across the continent. "Quality is the biggest concern rather than yield, although overall yields have been a little lower than had been expected," said Ron Storey, who heads private firm Australian Crop Forecasters.
"We really won't know until it starts to dry out after the weekend and the headers (combined harvesters) get back in the paddocks," he added. In many regions in south-eastern Australia more rain fell in 24 hours than the average November monthly rainfall. Between them, Victoria and South Australia are expected to produce about one-third of Australia's 2009/10 wheat crop of as much as 23 million tonnes, although some recent estimates have been trimmed to around 21 million tonnes.
Last season Australia harvested 21.4 million tonnes, the best crop since 25.2 million tonnes were harvested in 2005/06, although harvests in Victoria and South Australia were lower than average because of drought. National Australia Bank on Friday said it had cut its estimate of the 2009/10 wheat harvest to around 21 million tonnes from an October forecast of 23 million tonnes.
It said hot weather ahead of this week's rain had reduced yields in Victoria and South Australia, while frosts in September had impeded grain development in parts of New South Wales state. "There's been a fairly significant readjustment to yield estimates in a lot of areas," said NAB agribusiness economist Frank Drum.