Cheaper hay gives buyers option of holding off or stocking up
Summer rain and low hay prices give buyers plenty to think about. See how the market is reacting.
HAY growers with carry-over stocks of cereal hay and sheds loaded with generous production from last spring are not looking for further reasons for hay demand to be suppressed but a few are appearing.
Generous spring rainfall has provided inflows to Dartmouth and Hume dams achieving levels that are 40 and 65 per cent greater than last year’s respective February levels. Recent rain has even produced a net increase in the Hume’s storage levels this February.
The surge in general security allocations to 100 per cent in NSW has pushed down prices and Finley irrigators can now buy water as low as $80 a megalitre.
Not that summer crop irrigators need much at present as the 100mm to 200mm of rain that has fallen over most of NSW this year has given irrigators some time off watering.
According to lucerne hay growers near Katandra, hay yields this summer have been higher than average due to the mild nights and warm days.
Recent cuts have yielded five tonnes a hectare and as they start their fourth cut, they expect to achieve 20 to 24 tonnes a hectare this season.
Further south, the rainfall last week provided 15mm to 25mm of coverage to many properties in south and west Gippsland and some in the Heytesbury Settlement region.
Combined with the falls that have been recorded so far this year, dairy and beef properties in southwest Victoria and west and south Gippsland have received around twice their average rainfall year to date.
For many farmers, the extended pasture production provides further reasons to extend their stocks of home-made hay and silage at a time when their demand for high quality feed has declined.
Many southern dairy farmers have already dried off their cows in preparation for autumn calving.
According to dairy farmers near Poowong, this season is one of the more profitable seasons for years. Due to the combination of low hay and water prices and high chopper cow and calf prices, dairy farm returns are on the rise.
With summer applications of nitrogen fertilisers, summer feed has been a definite feature of the season. With fine tuning of grazing management and harvest intervals, Gippsland dairy farmers have some paddocks dedicated to harvest of forage this season.
Some have been cut six times for either silage, hay or fresh chop, which has been incorporated with other feeds and fed on feed pads.
Many buyers believe that hay prices may not fall much further but would rather hold off until they know more about how the season is shaping up.
However, others have seen hay prices swing wildly in the past and see this as a buying opportunity and are filling their sheds with cheap hay.
Cereal hay has been moving to south Gippsland at prices as low as $180 to $190 a tonne delivered. Due to freight restraints, this trade is only possible from oaten hay grown in the southern highlands south of Ballarat.
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