Australia Weather News

On the back of nine-year-high prices, grain farmers in Western Australia are hoping a mild spring will allow them to have one of their biggest and most profitable harvests in the state's history.

The shining light of grain production for WA this year is the thriving northern wheatbelt where growers say crops show potential to be the best they have ever grown.

However, the weather over the coming weeks is crucial to determine how much grain they produce.

Brady Green farms 8,900 hectares of wheat, lupins, barley, and canola near Yuna in the Chapman Valley, about 40 kilometres north-east of Geraldton.

He said he needed mild temperatures and some rain over the coming weeks as crops began flowering and filling grain.

"All our indicators show that our prices are strong, our yields should be strong," Mr Green said.

"We've come this far but it's all about the next month [and] what we don't want is for it to get too hot too quickly.

"We don't want it to get frosty and frost the crop because that will just wipe it right out [so] while it looks magnificent, we've got a really crucial month in front of us."

Mr Green said for some paddocks, weather could make a two-tonne-per-hectare difference to his harvest.

"It's certainly not an early season which means we can't have it finish early," he said.

Record harvest potential

The Grain Industry Association of Western Australia (GIWA) has conservatively estimated the state's crop production at 15.5 million tonnes: 9.9 million of that as wheat, 3.5 barley, and 1.2 million of canola.

GIWA crop report author Michael Lamond said that figure could easily grow.

"That's pretty conservative, there's a lot of upside," he said.

"The question mark is going to be frost and heat stress, but the wheat really does look sensational everywhere.

"There's several hundred thousand [more] hectares of barley than there ever has been before [and] it's looking better than 2016.

"It's quite exciting and I think growers are very quietly excited as it's coinciding with good prices."

The state's previous record crop was set in the 2016 harvest when growers delivered 16.62 million tonnes to the CBH Group, beating the previous record of 15.86 million tonnes set during the 2013 harvest.

Grain prices best in nine years and expected to climb

Wheat prices have hit a nine-year high at around $360 a tonne and with drought in the eastern states and reduced global stocks, Ten Tigers grain marketer Chris Tonkin expects that figure to remain firm or increase.

"If we're looking at percentile pricing, we're pretty much the best it's ever been for the last nine years," he said.

"We're about the 95th level for wheat, we're 100 for barley, around the 90th level for GM and non-GM (canola) and lupins are at about 95 as well."

For farmers with thriving crops, the combination of good prices and good crop potential is a rare and welcome occurrence, and also provides temptation to lock in some of the coming crop at a high price.

"We want to sell all our wheat at $300 plus, so for it to be sitting at $360 is really tempting to sell, but we have to be sure of production as well so we can't just sell it all at $360," Mr Green said.

High grain prices are expected to save the bottom lines of farmers like Royce Taylor from Lake Grace, who had a late start to the grain growing season.

"The prices are exceptional [so] if we can get average to a touch above average [yields], we'll make a decent profit this year," Mr Taylor said.

"Good yields and good prices doesn't happen very often and when it does, it's always at the expense of someone else.

"But you take the good with the bad and fingers crossed, it's our turn this time."

Geraldton harvest potential on knife edge

The good season in the north of the grain growing region is a stark contrast to last year, where growers had one of their worst harvests and delivered just 1.5 million tonnes of grain.

This year CBH Group zone manager Duncan Gray estimates farmers will harvest 3.4 million tonnes, or more if the weather is favourable.

"This is well above average; average is about 2.2 million tonnes for the Geraldton Port Zone," he said.

"We are potentially looking at the biggest, or certainly the second biggest, that we've had over the last four or five years.

"It could go either way. It's sitting on a bit of a knife edge at the present time."

Mr Gray said the cooperative had been busy shipping and reducing the amount of carryover grain in the system in a bid to free up capacity at receival sites.

He said CBH's bid to reduce costs would not impact the service growers received at sites when delivering their grain.