Canola still on track for record year

The November AOF crop report has the national crop at 6.75 million tonnes, over 400,000 tonnes larger than last year's crop, primarily on the back of a big lift in Western Australian production.

On the east coast, the story is more difficult to quantify.

Nick Goddard, AOF executive officer, said his organisation was tipping a close to 400,000 tonnes year on year drop in production in NSW, where conditions have been excessively wet throughout the growing season.

Victoria is tipped to remain virtually unchanged from last year's excellent crop, up 6000 tonnes to 1.15m tonnes, but Mr Goddard said recent rain could have an impact on final years.

To the west, both South Australia and Western Australia are likely to have excellent seasons, with WA estimated to grow over half the nation's canola, with 3.8m tonnes.

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Both WA, and SA, 550,000 tonnes, are on track for all time canola production records.

But it is on the east coast where there is the analysts are having difficulties predicting final numbers.

Mr Goddard said while canola crops had coped with excess moisture remarkably well during the growing season in many parts this was only one part of the equation.

"Access to paddocks for windrowing and then for harvest is likely to be very difficult for the foreseeable future," Mr Goddard said.

"This limited ability to harvest could cause losses with grain spilling onto the ground," he said.

However, he said overall, if harvest could be conducted in a reasonably timely fashion, it still promised to be a good season for the oilseeds sector.

Even in NSW, which is down 23 per cent year on year, the current figure of production of 1.25m tonnes is one of the highest on record.

"On well drained areas, the crops performed extremely well through the season and despite not insignificant levels of crop losses towards the end of the season, the overall state production is still expected to be one of the highest on record."

"An average yield of 1.6t/ha has been applied to the area to be harvested as crops that have done well, have done very well, offsetting the crops that have fared poorly.

In the north and north west of the state, windrowing has commenced where paddocks could be accessed, but over-wet paddocks in many areas will prevent access for windrowing and, subject to drier conditions in November, growers will harvest via direct heading.

In Victoria, Mr Goddard said the season was more kind than in NSW, at least up until late October, although there has been heavy rain in the state over the past three weeks.

He said it appeared when the unseasonal heavy rain came in October, most canola crops were well enough developed to withstand the moisture.

The AOF predicts the Mallee will be the standout region this season, with decile 10+ rainfall averaged over the growing season expecting to deliver exceptional yields

Overall, the AOF is forecasting crop losses of up to 10pc through the state, but says patches of exceptional crop will help mitigate these losses.

In terms of harvest Mr Goddard said given most farmers in Victoria windrowed the difficulty in geting crop cut at present was likely to disrupt harvest.

Through SA, he said it had generally been a near perfect season, apart from patches of excess wet on the southern Eyre Peninsula.

Since the report came out there has also been heavy rain on ripe, but unharvested crop in the eastern Mallee that may cause concerns.