A LARGE dryland cotton plant by farmers looking to take advantage of both rebounding cotton prices and good stored moisture levels is set to push Australia’s summer crop up by 21 per cent to 4.6 million tonnes.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics and Sciences (ABARES) issued its Australian Crop Report this week, which flagged a 15pc increase in planted area for the summer crop.
However, climate modelling has some summer croppers nervous.
In its latest seasonal outlooks, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) predicted a markedly hotter and drier summer period through key parts of the nation’s summer cropping belt.
Duty forecaster at the BOM Stuart Coombs said there had already been a build-up of hot air in the interior.
“We’ve seen some very hot weather impacting western Queensland and once that hot air builds up it can be very persistent,” he said.
Mr Coombs said the negative Indian Ocean Dipole effect that was a key factor in the wet spring throughout southern and eastern Australia had decayed, while the climate signals in the Pacific Ocean are neutral.
Farmers have flocked to cotton according to ABARES acting executive director Peter Gooday.
“Among leading summer crops, cotton production is forecast to increase by 64 per cent in 2016–17 to around a million tonnes of cotton lint and around 1.5mt of cottonseed,” he said.
Tobin Gorey, commodity analyst with Commonwealth Bank, said if realised, this figure would represent the second biggest Australian cotton crop on record.
The big forecast has not had an impact on cotton prices, according to Mr Gorey, who said they had remained basically firm following the ABARES estimates.
Mr Gorey said Australian cotton growers were looking out for some rain to help emerging crops following a favourable planting window.
He said there was expected to be scattered showers in cotton producing regions in the near term to keep the crop prospects afloat.
Rice is another crop expected to jump in terms of production, a beneficiary of the availability of irrigation water, with plantings expected to nearly quadruple on the back of cheap irrigation water in NSW’s rice belt.
However, the low feed grain prices globally have impacted the sorghum plant, forecast by ABARES to drop a staggering 31pc with farmers looking for higher value alternatives, which will represent Australia’s smallest sorghum crop for 24 years.
Hot weather will concern growers in Queensland, where ABARES mapping showing upper layer soil moisture was well below average in November in southern Queensland.
It is above average in Central Queensland and central and southern NSW.
Deep soil moisture is relatively good in most summer cropping regions.