Australia winter crops hurt by hot weather

 

 

Production and export availability of winter crops such as wheat in Australia's northeast will suffer as a result of unusually hot and dry weather, industry participants reported, amid warnings of more above-average temperatures in spring.

 

Conditions remain average to above in the nation's southeast, but yields from a harvest of wheat in coming months in northern New South Wales and Queensland will feel the effects of the warm conditions, logistics provider Grain Corp Ltd.reported Tuesday (August 25). Exportable surpluses will be reduced, it said without issuing estimates.

 

Crops in Queensland and neighbouring areas of northern New South Wales were hit by the hot weather, with the government's Bureau of Meteorology reporting that the "summer days in winter" saw record high temperatures in every state and territory.

 

Temperatures in northern New South Wales peaked on Sunday at 36.3 degrees Celsius, it said.

 

The seasonal climate outlook for spring forecasts above-average day and night temperatures across most of Australia, with high probabilities forecast for northern New South Wales as a result of recent warm conditions in the Indian Ocean and warming in the Pacific, the bureau reported late Monday in a statement.

 

Lyndon Pfeffer, president of the AgForce lobby group grains section, said crops in central Queensland are in poor shape, in part reflecting dry weather at planting, and if no rain falls in southern Queensland soon, the industry expects a below-average harvest in coming months.

 

Queensland typically accounts for about 5 percent of Australia's average annual long-term wheat production but the government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural & Resource Economics estimated in June that it would produce 1.8 million tonnes, or about 8 percent of a national crop estimated of 22.0 million tonnes, in this crop year ending March 31, 2010.

 

Abare estimated New South Wales will produce 6.8 million tonnes, or 31 percent of national output. Wheat production last crop year reached 21.4 million tonnes, about two-thirds of which was available for export.

 

"After being crook for a month, this hot weather has resulted in most crops turning blue with water stress and now either being fed to cattle or sprayed out to conserve soil moisture for next season," Pfeffer said in a statement.

 

"The last decent rain in central Queensland was at Easter time, and with above-average temperatures in May, June and the first half of July - followed by excessive heat and wind during the past few days - most Central Queensland crops are failing," he said.

 

In southern Queensland, particularly around the Darling Downs, there was a promising start to the season, with good rain in May in many areas providing reasonable growing conditions until now, but the excessive heat and wind isn't normal and has harmed crops, he said.

 

As a result, sorghum prices are rising, with wheat, chickpea and barley likely to be in short supply later in the year, he said.