CONTINUED soaking rain over most of the WA wheatbelt this week has put WA on track to produce a substantial winter grains crop this year - and that's going to have a major impact on the outlook for the national crop.
WA and NSW are the two biggest wheat producing states.
Often WA has harvested the biggest crop, as its Mediterranean climate has been seen as the most reliable among the states, providing good, reliable rains during the winter grains growing season - until the last few years.
Good follow-up rains at the end of this week, however, have now added to the widespread, soaking showers reported on FarmOnline earlier this week.
The attached rain map from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) tells the story, showing how the rain has now spread into the eastern wheatbelt, since our last report.
Earlier crop estimates are now likely to be revised, and should be on the higher end of CBH's earlier projection of between eight and 11 million tonnes, made early in July, saying it was 'on condition forecast rain is delivered this month'.
And the BoM has weighed in with a three-month WA forecast from July to September, which says there's a 75 per cent chance the WA wheatbelt will record between 100mm and 200mm of rain.
Email a friend