THE HEADERS are pulling off boxful after boxful and storages are full to the brim, but the gloss of the monster harvest is being taken off by a combination of low prices, due to the world wheat glut, and downgraded Australian wheat.
Protein levels have been low all season through east coast areas, while parts of NSW and Western Australia in particular have suffered weather damage.
WA growers, especially in southern areas, are suffering much the same problem as the east coast last year, with yet more rain causing serious damage to crops. Following last week’s heavy falls and storms, which caused delays at Perth airport, there was another substantial front this week.
This week, parts of the Great Southern, such as Wagin and Narrogin, received up to 90 millimetres, which is likely to cause further downgrading on standing crop.
CBH on Monday estimated around 68 per cent of the state’s harvest was complete, and there will be serious quality issues with remaining tonnages.
Full storage sites have also caused logistical issues in the west.
In NSW, GrainCorp said harvest has progressed in Central NSW to around 70pc complete.
Victoria and South Australia have been the two States to have the best runs at harvest, including a record-breaking day last week in Victoria.
Department of Primary Industry (DPI) Victoria’s Chris Sounness said while no formal records were kept, it was believed last Thursday broke a record for tonnage in Victoria, with the DPI estimating around 280,000 tonnes came off.
"It was a perfect day, farmers could start early and finish late and croppers right across the State, from the north to the south, were all going."
He said estimates in Victoria were for an overall crop of six million tonnes, of which just over 3.1m tonnes was likely to be wheat.
South Australia has also enjoyed a dry run, with Viterra reporting big tonnages coming in.
Gavin Warburton, of Australian Crop Forecasters, said his company was predicting an overall wheat yield slightly lower than the record 28m tonnes tipped by ABARES last week, coming in with an estimate of 26.4m tonnes.
"The major difference is in NSW, where we don’t know whether all the crop there that has been weather damaged will come in."
He said the quality issues in WA and northern NSW were likely to be crucial in terms of factors influencing the crop, however there was a lot less feed wheat about than last year, especially on the east coast.
"We cap the potential downgrade in NSW at a million tonnes or a little over, which is way down on last year."
Quality-wise, he said Victoria and South Australia had been good, although there were issues with protein in Victoria.
"The yields have been good, so the flipside of that has been that the protein is not quite there."
In contrast, he reported that in South Australia, traditionally not a high protein state, there had been significant amounts of hard wheat harvested.
"It seems that the carryover levels of nitrogen in SA have been quite good.
"Areas that often struggle to reach 13pc protein are doing so this year."
He said of lower grade wheat in Australia, ASW and below, around half would be due to harvest damage and half due to low protein.
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