“It’s certainly been a season to remember for all the wrong reasons,” Federated Farmers North Island arable industry vice-chairman Hew Dalrymple said.
“Right across the island it’s been a very late finish to harvest and the results have been disappointing.
“Maize silage yields were poor and while maize grain harvesting is just getting under way, again yields are coming in poor, 15-20% across the board – not good,” Dalrymple said.
Significant areas of maize silage were not harvested because of the boggy ground conditions and had been carried over for grain harvest.
The two cyclones caused considerable flooding damage and crop loss to many parts of the country.
Paddocks in Bay of Plenty and Waikato had been under water and in most other areas ground conditions got just too wet.
High winds caused lodging, especially in the eastern North Island.
While maize silage harvesting was now complete, maize grain harvesting continued slowly because of wet ground and because grain moisture levels had been slow to fall.
Maize yields were generally below average to average, which reflected the difficult climatic season.
For many regions it was generally dry from mid-December to mid-February then, come autumn, ground conditions in most North Island areas were very wet and not conducive to harvesting grain.
Maize yields in Waikato were below average, less than 10t/ha while in Bay of Plenty about 3000 tonnes of maize grain was adversely affected by flooding.
In Gisborne yields were down 15% to 20% on average and despite irrigation most Hawke’s Bay grain yields were less than 12t/ha.
The wet ground in Manawatu was making grain harvesting very problematic with some combines requiring tracks while in Wairarapa silage yields were below average at 15t to 17t DM and ground conditions just drying now to start grain harvesting.
“Spring pricing was poor and now poor yields, farmers will lose money on maize,” Dalrymple said.
The worry to come would be meeting end-user demand.
“The grower doesn’t have to make the phone call, trading is buyer-driven.”
While maize had lifted an average $70 a tonne since spring to be at “the north side of $400” now, the downfall of poor yields wasn’t seeing farmers any better off.
International prices and import parity were also a relative check on any benefit for local growers.
Barley yields and quality were down with a lot of rejected grain meaning malting companies had not been delivered the volumes they wanted.
“A lot of barley dropped down to feed market price and bang, not made any money.”
Autumn planting had been frustrating.
A lot of maize missed getting planted with land now left to fallow over winter.
“There may be some winter wheat if it dries up but there’s not a lot of winter cereal here anyway.
Spring barley could be an alternative as could peas but it all depended on market demand and what happened weather-wise heading into spring.
“Next season I don’t think there will be any lack of crops to grow, with stocks low in both maize and grain and malting companies not getting what they wanted this season. Demand will be there from end-users.
“It could be a year for North Island growers to step up and plant a bit more – to see money lost in paddocks and some of us have lost a lot of money in seed peas and for others, in maize. We have some making up to do,” Dalrymple said.
Looking forward, the good news was on the pea front.
Early indications were for a successful first year of the Wairarapa pea moratorium.
“We have some very positive results from the first year. It’s been good news for the industry nationwide, no pea weevils have been found outside of Wairarapa,” grains vice chairman Brian Leadley said.
“So, long term, looking forward we have got to be grateful to those Wairarapa farmers who have taken the hit for the whole industry.”
Leadley said the industry was in a position to look for wider opportunities for those growers in their second year of the moratorium.
“We are hopeful we will have better options available to them for this next season but again that will depend a lot on what spring deals up.”
Meanwhile, global wheat stocks would end the season at a record volume as consumption eased, mostly as a result of reduced feed requirements, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said.
An abundance of wheat on the global market would keep prices low and generally meant a cap on prices in New Zealand to limit imports of cheaper product.
Ending stocks of wheat were expected to grow even higher than the 2016-17 level as global wheat consumption dropped from last year’s record.
The USDA forecast an increase in food use would only partially offset lower demand on wheat for feed and residual usage.
Imports were forecast to increase on the previous year’s volumes, making it the fifth consecutive year of record capacities.
Weather was also pressuring international markets with offshore grain markets continuing to experience volatility as they also remained somewhat “weather markets” with the trade continuing to keep one eye on the weather charts.
