SORGHUM harvest has kicked off across northern NSW with mixed yields expected depending on when crops were planted.
Ag Scienta director Lloyd George, Melbourne, said prices had been decreasing, especially in the past week.
Mr George said Darling Downs prices would be the most appropriate benchmark for sorghum prices and were trading at $277 a tonne.
He said prices on February 10 were recorded at $296/t.
With the NSW crop estimated to yield about 585,000 tonnes and the Queensland crop expected to exceed two million tonnes, Mr George said the market was still trying to find export demand.
Although some early deals had been done with China, Mr George said business had waned in the past six weeks.
China had also been vigorously buying large amounts of sorghum from the US.
"They're buying it for earlier positions there than what the Australian sorghum is at at the moment," he said.
Mr George suspected once harvest ramped up, local producers would start to attract overseas demand.
Harvest has only just started in the Gunnedah region and Pursehouse Rural agronomist Matt Roseby said it hadn't been a great start.
"There's below average yields in the really early stuff," he said.
"Most crops are only doing 2.5 tonnes to three tonnes a hectare."
He said the earlier planted sorghum crops experienced very hot and dry conditions in October and November, which would have decreased yield significantly.
"The low yield was pretty well expected," Mr Roseby said.
"Rain during Christmas saved it but there wasn't enough to pack the yield up too much."
B and W agronomist Rob Long, Moree, said there hadn't been a lot of sorghum harvested in the region, but it was about to get into full swing.
Much like the season, Mr Long said he suspected harvest would be a mixed bag with some people stripping 1.5 t/ha and others getting up to 6t/ha.
Mr Long said the performance of the crop relied on when it was planted and whether it had good rain in and around grain fill.
"The very early crops that were hit with the November heat and didn't get enough rain to compensate really struggled," he said. "Those yields would be about 1.5 t/ha."
Those who planted a month later and had good grain fill would be looking at yields of 2.5 to 3t/ha, Mr Long said.
Growers near Yallaroi and Coolatai who planted later and didn't suffer significant heat stress during grain fill expect yields of about 5 to 6t/ha.
"It was very much a mixed bag in the area, there's huge differences in yield," Mr Long said.
Local Land Services North West senior officer Bill Manning said most crops planted on the Liverpool Plains wouldn't be harvested for six to eight weeks.
Apart from needing more rain to boost yields, he said crops in the area were faring well and producers expected a relatively good season.
Welcome rain at Moree
HALF a year's rainfall in two months turned Oscar Pearse's, "Kambodia", Moree, summer cropping season around.
Mr Pearse (pictured) planted his first lot of sorghum during the third week of September on only 25 millimetres of rain.
He planted four to five plants a metre due to the soil's moisture profile.
The cropping season was looking dire until the second week of December when Mr Pearse got 75mm of rain.
"Over a 45-day period we had 52 per cent of our yearly average rainfall," he said.
After the rain, the early planted sorghum improved rapidly and Mr Pearse used the stored moisture to plant a larger area of sorghum in January, bringing his total plant up to 300ha.
Mr Pearse only had to do one insecticide spray across the whole season, he said.
Because he planted on a 2013 chickpea crop fallow, they didn't need to apply any nitrogen or fertiliser.
Mr Pearse said he was still a few weeks away from stripping his crop but was expecting a relatively good yield.
