October 26, 2009
Australia's cotton, sorghum areas receive planting rains
Many districts where summer crops cotton and sorghum are grown in Australia's New South Wales state have received early season rainfall in the past day or so, Commonwealth Bank of Australia reported Monday (October 26).
"Further rain is expected over the next couple of days, providing a much improved environment for planting and emergence," Luke Mathews, the bank's agricultural commodities strategist said in a brief daily note.
But a Bureau of Meteorology three-month outlook issued last week points to a continuing El Nino weather event in the Pacific Basin through to March, "meaning potentially less rain during the sorghum, cotton and sugar cane growing seasons." he added.
The latest official forecast puts lint production from an Australian cotton crop planted this crop year, which began April 1, at 375,000 tonnes, 14 percent higher than an actual 329,000 tonnes last year.
New crop sorghum production is estimated at 1.85 million tonnes, down 20 percent from 2.32 million tonnes in 2008-09, the government's Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics forecast in a September Crop Report.
