COMMODITY UPDATE
Market Observations: December

The 2024 cropping year has been mixed in terms of success (so far) with some East Coast regions experiencing high yields, good protein while capturing some good prices. There have been other states such as W.A that has hit a home run on all facets. Good protein than per usual, high yields and in the run up to December high Port/Track prices. Combine this with no major inhibitors to the harvest program, W.A farmers would be very pleased with the 2024 outcome. Sadly, this has not been reflected in S.A and Victoria (to an extent) due to various combinations of late planting, frosts during flowering, and rain during harvest which has had a significant effect by negatively impacting on grain, seed and pulse production.

The late planting was a result of a disappointing Autumn break. While rains did eventually arrive for most regions, it already placed crops behind the ‘8 ball’ trying to establish early.

Late planting typically results in a shortened growing season which reduces time for the crops to mature properly. This was particularly the case for Vic and S.A cropping regions. Late-planted crops are often exposed to higher temperatures during grain-filling, leading to heat stress. Crops took a long time to get established and were visibly struggling coming into Winter. Erratic spring rainfall patterns put some regions back on track albeit with yield penalties due to untimely weather patterns.

Many regions including Victoria’s key growing areas being the Mallee and Wimmera suffered damaging frosts which invokes the need to decide to cut for hay or take your chances and hope the crop fills. With strong prices for Hay at the time many decided to opt for cutting as a logical risk against crop failure. Frosts that occur during flowering is at a critical stage for cereal crops. During this period, it can cause “empty heads” which is essentially no grain formation. For crops that do survive frost, it may hinder normal development, further pushing the growth cycle into less favorable weather conditions.

This season has thrown up many surprises with some frosted areas producing decent yields, then unfortunately there are those that decided to run the crop through to harvest only to find that the frosts had done their job after all. With crops already under production pressure due to late planting and erratic rain patterns, they are more vulnerable to the damage a frost can deliver.

For those regions that managed to still make it to harvest after late planting and was exposed to frost, at the end of November as harvest was underway faced a third challenge – Rain.

Throughout the central West of NSW, the MIA and Riverina areas, down to central Vic and the Wimmera, rain arrived en masse to interrupt harvest and effect quality yet again. Sprouting (pre-harvest sprouting) occurs when there is prolonged wet conditions which can cause grains to germinate on the head, significantly reducing quality.  Prior to the rain, areas that were harvesting Barley were achieving Malting quality and those that were harvesting Wheat were managing to achieve higher than expected grades such as AH2 – a result of higher protein. With broad areas receiving 75 ml in one sitting, some even more, crops start to lose test weight potentially dropping as much as 20kg p/hecta litre. In addition to reduced test weight Wheat becomes poor for milling and loses its baking quality. For Barley, it is lower malting quality.

At the time of writing there is more rain forecast with plenty of harvest to go. If the rain materialises it could have more damning effects. This includes the possibility of fungal growth, head blight and black tip. This is all in addition to wet paddocks, harvest delays and potential problems with storage once the crop is finally off.

Effectively, the key issues this year affecting yield and quality have been a poor Autumn break, late planting, frost and rain events during harvest. While we will look back at Australia’s 2024/25 crop as generally being a success, there hasn’t been too many farmers that wouldn’t have had some form of yield disruption. But for those that experienced all four major facets affecting yields (and many are still yet to harvest) we hope they can salvage something from the year.

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Author

Justin Fay
Commodity Manager