STRONG wheat prices mean some farmers are cashing-in their crops straight after harvest, while others are making the most of on-farm storage and hoping the overall reduced yield will mean a further spike in the market.
So far this harvest the average cash price for Australian Premium White (APW) has been about $248 a tonne (Pt Adelaide) which is up about $14/t on last year.
Igrain senior account manager Machallie McCormack, Crookwell, said while expected yields were down for this year's wheat crop, quality was up.
At the end of last week Ms McCormack said grain delivered to Queensland was 521,000 tonnes, NSW 3.6 million tonnes and Victoria 1.5 million.
Ms McCormack said most farmers with Australian Prime Hard (APH1) and APH2 or Hard (H1) or H2 crops were cashing in at the silos, while those with lesser quality grain were holding onto it to see what the market did.
She said local prices were such at the moment that Australia risked pricing itself out of the world market.
"If you can't export it then it goes back into the domestic market and that floods it."
As of Monday prices were strong at about $250 to $280 a tonne ex-farm at the silos, she said.
Ms McCormack said as yield was down and the north of the State was dry - despite recent rain - some growers were holding onto wheat on the back of the idea prices would rise as supply tightened.
She expected those holding onto wheat would do so for about four to six months.
"A lot of farmers are in the position where they can sit back and see what the market does at the moment," Ms McCormack said.
"Historically prices at harvest are not the best, so if you sell after you generally get better prices."
Also at play was that farmers had invested a lot in on-farm storage and wanted to make best use of it.
However, Ms McCormack said she didn't expect the prices to lift much more.
Guy Roberts Commodities principal Guy Roberts, Moree, said farmers in the north were storing wheat hoping for better prices.
He said most farmers in the district had "incredible" amounts of storage and wanted to utilise that.
This was also due to the fact prices generally increased post-harvest.
However, he said the price hinged a lot on what happened with the sorghum crop.
"Depending on what happens with the sorghum crop, prices could steady," Mr Roberts said.
Mr Roberts said wheat and barley from the district would probably head to the Queensland market where there was a "slight preference" for feed grain.
He said yields were down on expectations in the north while quality was "fair".
But with so much crop in storage it was hard to determine what size the crop was.
Agracom managing director Joe Hallman, Quirindi, said it had been a tough season with a dry finish which allowed the crop to come off earlier than normal.
"Most farmers were pleasant- ly surprised with the yield they got," Mr Hallman said.
He said durum and red wheats were good quality.
"The durum market has been the most surprising in that it had very strong prices and now that market has turned disappointing," he said.
He said the wheat market had been "sideways" with local prices not affected that much despite changes to offshore values.
Mr Hallman said with the recent rain it was hard to predict which way the market would move next.