THE GRAINS Industry Association of Western Australia last week released numbers flagging a wheat harvest of 5.5 million tonnes, which would be down between 2.5 and 3 million tonnes on last year’s crop, according to official Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) data.
Vice chairman of Western Grain Growers, the grains committee of the Pastoralists and Graziers 
Association, Barry Large, said that it was difficult to get a true feel for the state of the crop as some areas were better than others.
But he said it was likely to be a below average year.
"There’s still hope for an average year, but with the crop struggling in many parts of the true wheatbelt, it needs a good finish," he said.
"Many parts of the medium to high rainfall zone are looking OK, and pockets around Esperance are excellent, but for every bit that is good, there is another area that is behind and crops are sitting in the balance."
He said there were areas in the state had received just 80mm of rain for the year.
In his own area at Miling, he said crops were average, but biomass had been lost because of a lack of winter rain.
And he said it was not far inland from there where the situation got even tighter.
Mr Large said the potential was still there for a 6.5-7mt crop, but an abnormally wet finish was needed, with WA generally reliant on winter, rather than spring rain for yield.
Source: farmonline.com.au
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