ANOTHER week of steady rain across much of NSW has farmers questioning when the wet conditions will ease.
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Soils are already saturated, so water is flowing with every shower. As a result waterways are rapidly rising with any decent rain.
The reprieve from the rain in the first halve of July helped crops to dry out somewhat, but nonetheless soils remained saturated.
Crops are using limited moisture in July and cool temperatures allow for limited evaporation.
This was clearly evident last week when a general 30mm to 50mm through much of the central west triggered flooding in many areas.
Farmers along the Bogan River are wondering when the rain will ease.
It’s the second, and in some cased the third, occasion this season farmers along the flood prone areas of the Bogan River have been inundated.
Some farmers in the central west have only recently completed the last of planting, after an extremely wet June. It’s a similar situation in the North West where the last if the chickpea planting was being completed, after country was finally dry enough to support machinery after the heavy June rain.
Sharp increases in chickpea plantings has many traders saying this year’s harvest will be comfortably larger than last year’s crop of one million tonnes, but opinions on how much larger remain varied.
Larger plantings in Canada and improved seasonal conditions in India are also likely to influence world pulse prices in the coming months.
It’s been a relatively good start to the Indian monsoon this year which has allowed good progress on oilseed and pulse plantings but they will need the favourable start to continue to ensure a good crop.
Farmers are becoming increasingly concerned about as to where grain prices will be at harvest time and heading into 2017.
Forecasts for low grain prices have been circulating for some time and reasons for higher prices are difficult to find.
Domestic grain prices continued to fall last week. Stockfeed wheat into Newcastle eased by $1/t to $257/t, while sorghum fell by $3/t to $213/t.
Exporter bids into Port Kembla for APW were $8/t lower at $242/t.
New crop prices continued to list. New season APW multigrade bids into NSW ports were $2/t to $3 lower to about $240. It’s a similar tale with new season bids are about $190/t port.
