Wheat prices weaker while barley stays strong
Grain crops are at a critical phase and rainfall in the next three months is vital, especially for Victorian crops.
THE new COVID-19 restrictions announced this week retain agriculture and grain milling as an essential service and markets remain unaffected.
As new-crop wheat prices are still $50 a tonne under current values and the production outlook is positive, pressure remains on old-crop prices.
Wheat prices eased $10 for Australian Standard White to $346 a tonne delivered to users in Melbourne.
Demand for barley is firm in the stockfeed sector and BAR1 grade is trading earlier this week at $272 a tonne delivered to Melbourne users.
Global futures prices are sticking with a downward market sentiment.
Soyabean, corn and wheat futures in Chicago opened this week $3 to $4.40 a tonne lower and wheat futures in Paris are $4.50 lower.
Grain crops are at a critical phase and rainfall for the next three months is vital, particularly for crops in Victoria.
Soil moisture monitored in crops at Ouyen, Speed and Elmore all lost at least 10 per cent of their capacity last month.
According to grain growers at Bangerang, their crops look good, but despite cool winter weather, the soil moisture levels are too low.
The last three months has seen below-average rainfall in all grain growing regions except the central west and northern grain belt of NSW, which has received above-average falls.
July has been especially dry for all of southern Australia.
However, a significant low-pressure trough sitting north of the Great Australian Bight is forecast to be a game-changer for crops in a broad span of cropping regions.
This week and over the weekend, more than 25mm of rain is forecast to reach all the cropping regions of Western Australia and all but the northern rim of the cropping belt of NSW.
The forecasts for Victoria and South Australia are less promising, but could still provide 15mm in the Mallee and northern Victoria.
Conspicuously absent in the forecast is a dump of rain for Victoria’s Wimmera and the mid-north of South Australia.
The following week, the much less reliable 16-day forecasts suggest a minimum of 30mm across much of Victoria.
Some optimism is still warranted as models for the next three months forecast wetter and warmer than average conditions in northern Victoria.
The average of international weather models monitored by the Bureau of Meteorology all point to a cooling of waters in the Pacific and twice the normal likelihood of a wetter La Nina weather pattern forming.
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