November 18, 2009

A run of hot weather in southeast Australia in November will limit the potential of some winter crops, including wheat, industry participants said Tuesday (November 17).

While the extent of the damage isn't known yet to storage and handling concern GrainCorp Ltd. the hot weather could cause a loss of grain weight in maturing cereals, the company's Corporate Affairs Manager, David Ginns, said in a brief interview.

The hot dry spell in southwest districts in Victoria state that began in October has lowered the potential of crops, especially later maturing ones such as winter wheat, according to a crop industry newsletter issued Tuesday by Victoria's Department of Primary Industries.

The government's Bureau of Meteorology reported a record heat wave across South Australia in the first half of November, with maximum temperatures across the state in the period generally 6-8 degrees Celsius above the monthly average, with minimum temperatures 3-5 degrees above the November monthly average.

The extreme heat event was the result of a near stationary weather pattern with a high pressure cell in the Tasman Sea directing hot dry continental winds across the state, the bureau reported in a statement.

El Niño climate episodes, such as the one currently in the Pacific, usually result in increased temperatures over Australia; so this, along with the observed long-term increases in mean temperatures across South Australia in recent decades, is contributing to the record heat in this event, it said.

Victoria and southern New South Wales also experienced above average temperatures in the period.

Neither Ginns nor the department issued any forecast for wheat production this crop year ending March 31, 2010, which nationally is generally estimated in a range of 22 million-23 million tonnes.

Ginns said the harvest of winter crops is all but over in Queensland, starting to wind down in northern New South Wales but still gathering pace further south.