Some early harvest kicked off in Central NSW last week before coming to a stop with the recent rainfall.
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A mixture of canola, barley and wheat is reported to be coming off. One grower at Quambone reported protein as high as 16.3 per cent with low screenings of 0.7 per cent, putting it in the APH15+ category.
This made its way off the header into a local Central West NSW Packer at $350/MT delivered.
The high protein content of wheat isn’t overly surprising, as the hard crop conditions are often associated with producing higher protein wheats.
Barley being stripped at Nyngan was reported to be F1, having been sampled at 66 test weight and screenings of 3 per cent.
Canola at Warren was reported to have oil content as low as 30 per cent.
What is surprising out of all the early cereal quality reports, is the low level of screenings, however this might be an issue we start to see more of as harvest activity becomes more widespread.
The Darling Downs market continued to soften last week as recent rainfall is improving outlooks for sorghum sowing prospects.
Speculators are also starting to comment this late rain may cause some quality downgrades of wheat yet to be harvested, although it’s still too early to tell whether this will be the case.
New crop chick peas continue to firm, strengthening another $40/MT.
New crop quality issues resulting from the recent rain on key pulse growing areas is the main driver behind the continued upside.
There have been reports of growers having to wash out forward commitments due to mould and recent wet weather, negatively effecting yields.
Old crop lupins also had another leap last week, with Central NSW values firming to over $400/MT farm gate for No1 quality.
The prospects for new crop lupin production is looking very poor given the less than ideal growing season, so the expected new crop shortfall is causing a decent amount of buying depth for unsold, old crop stocks.