WA Harvest exceeding expectations - CBH
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Cattle News
- Dec 15, 2017
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Location This week (mt) This seaosn (mt)
Albany 630,000 2,730,000
Esperance 361,000 2,520,000
Geraldton 120,000 1,480,000
Kwinana 1,000,000 4,800,000
CBH TOTAL 2,111,000 11,170,000
The CBH Group has increased its crop estimate for the 2017-18 harvest to between 12.7 million tonnes and 13.2 million tonnes.
It is the second time CBH has revised up this harvest’s crop estimate, having started at between 9.5 million tonnes and 10 million tonnes in September 2017.
“It’s fair to say that this year’s harvest has exceeded our expectations, particularly in the southern part of the state,” CBH General Manager Operations David Capper said.
Rain has again been a feature the past week for many areas of the state and CBH will closely monitor for sprouting and make available any falling number units if needed.
“Sites in some part of the state are starting to wind down as we head into Christmas however there are many sites that will remain busy up to and after Christmas.
“If you are still going, please get in touch with your local CBH site or the CBH website to find out opening times in the lead up to and immediately after Christmas”.
“I’d like to wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas and New Year, and remind everyone to take care on the roads over this busy period.”
ALBANY
The Albany Zone received 630,000 tonnes over the past week taking total receivals for the year to 2.37 million tonnes. As a comparison at the same date last year the zone had received 2.1 million tonnes.
Following large volumes of grain received over the week when 240,000 tonnes was delivered, we again received rain on the Monday which has considerably slowed harvest progress. Rainfall between 1- 60mm was received and while some growers were able to start harvest the next day, others, particularly those in the south of the zone will have up to several days delays before recommencing harvest programs.
“While the full impact on quality will not be fully determined until harvest is back up and running, it’s expected there will be some downgrading of wheat and monitoring of grain through falling number units that have been set up,” Albany Zone Manager Greg Thornton.
Some growers are either finished or close to winding up harvest programs. Overall the zone is only 75 per cent towards harvest estimate and it is expected harvest will continue into the New Year.
ESPERANCE
It was another week of the same weather pattern, with good weather over the weekend followed by rain on Monday.
Most growers in the Esperance Zone have been able to finish their harvest programs or are only left with a day or two of harvest.
However there is still a large amount of grain stored on farm which has yet to come into the system but hopefully that will happen over the next week.
The Esperance Zone has passed 2.5 million tonnes and the Chadwick receival site has passed 1 million tonnes for the season. Meanwhile on the weekend Ravensthorpe broke its daily receival record.
“For the week we received 361,000 tonnes, and hopefully most sites and growers will be well and truly wrapped up before Christmas,” Esperance Zone Manager Mick Daw said.
GERALDTON
Geraldton Zone has really slowed down in the last week, with again a mixture of rain on the weekend and many growers finishing up their harvest programs.
“Currently we’re sitting on 1.48 million tonnes and there’s potentially another 80,000 tonnes to 120,000 tonnes left to come in, which is a remarkable result again,” Geraldton Zone Manager Duncan Gray said.
The only sites still open are Northampton, Mullewa, Mingenew, Carnamah and the Geraldton Port, with everything else closed.
KWINANA
The Kwinana Zone has now received almost 5 milliontonnes tonnes across the zone. Rain has once again slowed receivals across the zone with heavy falls in the north and east of up to 40mm.
Canola and barley receivals have slowed right down with wheat now the majority of receivals.
“Quality in the wheat has been very good so far but with the recent rains we will be keeping an eye out for sprouting in some areas,” Kwinana Assistant Zone Manager Allan Walker said.
“Some growers in the north and east of the zone have finished their programs and with good weather conditions expected over the next week, we will start to see a lot more finish up with 95 per cent completed by Christmas.”
MARKET UPDATE
Grower selling remained relatively strong during this week particularly for barley with growers continuing to offload feed barley at values of A$250 – A$255 per tonne free in store (FIS) Kwinana zone. However these values did decline a few dollars by the end of the week with the market, and remained around the A$250 per tonne FIS level.
Malt barley values also eased A$2-3 per tonne as a stronger Australian dollar resulted in slightly weaker Australian values.
The wheat market is clearly focussed again this week on protein with the trade mainly chasing the higher protein grades for the South East Asian market in particular. APW values continued to be relatively strong at A$270 per tonne FIS with Australian Hard (AH1) now some A$30 per tonne premium to APW as the market chases this higher protein.
As a result of the lower protein year ASW values continue to reflect the supply with discount to APW1 this week being as high as $20 per tonne. Traditionally this spread is in the range of A$10 per tonne.
The canola market is starting to slow as growers focus on marketing their cereals. While the trades are still there, the buy activity is clearly starting to slow. Prices this week remained in the A$530 per tonne range FIS.
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