THE best autumn start in recent times is now behind us and the dive from magnificent autumn days – when growing feed seemed to be a leisure activity – to the depths of winter and an onslaught of cold wet and windy conditions is upon us.
This has divided some districts, particularly in my part of the world.
The Loddon Valley Highway separates the two areas.
To the east of this line, moisture seems to be in abundance, with some parts experiencing waterlogging of both crop and pasture paddocks.
However, I am yet to hear a complaint from any producer that it is too wet.
The soil moisture profile is certainly full and any near-future significant falls would potentially see some damage occur from water lying and overflowing creeks.
To the west of this line, while all of the crops have enjoyed a good early start, the need for rainfall is still quite evident.
What appeared to be a good bank of feed going into the winter has come to a sudden halt, with heavy frost and limited rain, and livestock appear to be well and truly getting on top of slow-growing pastures.
In addition, there is also a need in areas for surface water as dams have not received any inflow thus far.
With many dams already at low levels, some run-off will be required before the warmer months arrive.
If someone had asked me six weeks ago when we would see new-season suckers, I would have told them we would probably have been into them by this stage.
However, the sudden change in climatic conditions has seen many lambs come to somewhat of a standstill in their weight gain and has perhaps put them a further two to three weeks back from my early expectations.
A lot of lambs will need a bit of sun on them before they can "bloom up" and finish properly.
Notwithstanding the past three or four weeks of cheapening markets, our lamb market is still on a solid platform going into spring.
And given reasonable spring rainfall, this should allow us to market a large percentage of our lambs as suckers as opposed to having to shear and finish them through summer.
This scenario raises the question which is common heading into spring: "How much will store lambs be worth?"
The answer is nearly always driven by seasonal conditions and hence numbers of unfinished lambs.
However, if producers over a large area have the ability to finish a large percentage of their suckers for the trade and have good feed reserves, they will have the ability to shear and finish if they desire.
Coupled with the seemingly insatiable desire for light MK or "bag lambs", this could potentially make turning-out lambs hard to secure at what is considered by many to be a reasonable rate.
Store sheep sales over the past two months have been all but non-existent, but as the spring selling season dawns, there is certainly an air of expectation surrounding prices of store sheep.
The few physical store sheep sales that have been conducted have been very solid without producing the "wow" results that some may have expected, given slaughter stock prices and the favourable autumn conditions.
There are many and varied contributing factors in why this has been the case but a major cause, I believe, has been memory.
In 2011-12 when high slaughter stock prices and "grass fever" last combined we saw some store sheep prices at levels that made the transit insurance underwriters quake.
The relatively sharp fall from those prices, I think, remains ingrained in the minds of those in the industry, and therefore when purchasing stock theoretical budgets are based more on realistic historical values than "on-the-spot markets".
While this may be one of many factors subduing store sheep prices, on the other side of the ledger availability of young store stock this season may well be the biggest influence on where prices will sit.
A significant number of young first-cross ewes will never get the chance to see a ram, instead meeting with high processor demand in late summer-early autumn.
A reportedly good season throughout a large part of the Riverina may well affect the number of sheep coming out of the area, and few sheep have come across the Nullarbor to fill orders in the eastern States compared to in previous years.
Hence, numbers of young breeding ewes will be in tighter supply than in other years.
Plus, spring rainfall is the secret.
El Niño seems to be the at the forefront of everyone's mind.
However, history tells us that seasons are made as much by the timing of rain events as they are by annual totals.
Here's hoping spring rains eventuate in a timely manner and allow our producers to market their livestock on their own terms.
-COMMENT by NICK BYRNE, Rodwells Bendigo
