AUSTRALIA (11 October)
The harvest of the 2005 winter grains is just starting in some northern parts of the country. The outlook for this year’s production is much more favourable than the prospective at the outset of the season. After very dry conditions during the main planting period, good rains finally arrived in the second half of June, just in time for some intensive late planting activity. As a result of the season’s rainfall pattern, farmers are reported to have planted less wheat, which is normally planted in the first part of the planting period, but increased the area sown with barley, which was planted after the late rains and is the normal choice when the planting date is late, as it performs relatively better than wheat. Yields are expected to vary greatly according to locality, with some areas where rains continued during September, such as New South Wales, faring better than others, which remained fairly dry overall, such as Queensland. Although early harvest results are quite favourable, forecasts of production continue to vary quite greatly and will not firm up until more of the crop has been gathered across all regions of the country. However, it now seems likely that wheat crop in 2005 will be at least 20 million tonnes, close to last year’s level, while output of barley may increase as a result of the increased area, and reach at least 6.7 million tonnes.
Planting of the summer crop of sorghum (for harvest in 2006) is carried out in September and October. Early prospects were relatively favourable reflecting the build-up of sufficient soil moisture supplies for planting when the winter rains finally arrived, and early tentative forecasts pointed to an increase in plantings by some 10 percent, with farmers expected to make use of fallow that could not be planted to winter grains because of the earlier dryness. However, predominantly dry weather continuing throughout September in Queensland has reduced expectations in this region, where a large share of the summer crops are produced.