Good rain has finally fallen in parts of Australia's eastern grain belt, in the nick of time to revive wheat crop prospects in some areas in the final weeks of the annual planting window. Rain fell late this week in Queensland and northern New South Wales, adding to good rain in Western Australia. However, most of the major cropping states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia remain dry. Australia's national wheat exporter, AWB Ltd, said on Friday it was sticking to its forecast for a wheat crop of 22-23 million tonnes for the growing year to March 31, 2006. This would compare with 20.4 million tonnes last season. But industry experts said Australia's canola crop, which is planted than wheat, was sure to be severely lower than last year's because of very dry, hot weather which had restricted plantings.
"At this time of year, rain is very timely," AWB spokesman Ryan McKinley said on Friday of wheat crop prospects. "Growers will use good rain to plant at this stage in the year," he said.
"Western Australia's off to a flyer," he added. The state normally produces one-third of Australia's annual wheat crop. But Australia's eastern and southern states still needed good rain, he said.
Rainfall in Queensland on Thursday of a minimum of 12 millimetres (0.5 inch) and significantly more in some areas was enough for growers to get a crop into the ground, David Gins, Chief Operating Officer of grower organisation Grains Council of Australia (GCA), told Reuters on Friday.
Queensland is one of Australia's smaller wheat-growing states, producing 1.0 million tonnes in the year to March 31. This compared with 6.7 million tonnes in New South Wales, 2.8 million in South Australia and 2.0 million in Victoria.
Western Australia overtook New South Wales in recent years to produce 7.7 million tonnes of wheat in the last growing year, around one-third of national output.
"Western Australia is going gangbusters," Gin's said of planting activity in that state, but northern New South Wales still looked "a bit dicey".
Western Australian grains handling and marketing organisation Co-operative Bulk Handling now saw the potential for total winter grains crop receivables in the state of more than 15 million tonnes this season, a company source said.
This would be a new record, greater than the 14.7 million tonnes of receivables in the year to March 31, 2004 and more than the 10.6 million tonnes of receivables in the latest growing year.
While Victoria and New South Wales were very dry, relatively high temperatures would keep the planting window open throughout June, Gin's said.
A national wheat crop forecast of 22.6 million tonnes by government agency the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) was a "gigantic guess" given that the crop was mostly not even in the ground yet, GCS's Gin's said.
It was still possible that forecast levels could be exceeded, with a return to production by central Queensland manned a big crop in Western Australia, he said.
The winter oilseed crop of canola, however, remained "in a lot of strife". Canaille is planted before wheat and barley among the major winter crops.
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