IT HAS been a testing few weeks for Australia’s canola producers, in terms of both production and pricing.
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Australia’s farmers flocked to plant canola this season, drawn in by its premium over other crop options, but the sowing period has thrown up its share of frustrations.
Insect pressures have caused issues, with slugs, snails, lucerne flea and red-legged earth mites all proving problematic through southern and eastern Australia.
The mouse plague in the Wimmera has also affected canola emergence, with reports of seed being eaten out of the ground, leading to a patchy germination.
Slug pressure is rising in traditional hot spots such as south western Victoria, but the gastropods are also being encountered, in many cases for the first time, in the Wimmera. After baiting for mice, farmers are now faced with another expense in the form of an application of slug bait.
Meanwhile, the tempting price that lured farmers to plant extra canola is showing signs of easing.
For Glenlee farmers Greg and Adam Schwedes, the primary concern will be producing a crop before worrying about pricing.
“It has been a wet start to the season, which is great, but it provides its own set of challenges,” Greg said.
Greg said he was relatively pleased with the emergence of canola crops, but added it had been slow to germinate.
“From here, it is just a matter of ensuring we stay on top of all the pests and weeds, there are reports of bug numbers building up so we need to be aware of that,” he said. “We won’t start getting too fussed about what the price is doing until there is more certainty about production.”
Cargill Australia corporate affairs manager Peter McBride said a big South American soybean crop was weighing heavily on the entire oilseeds sector. In addition, after a boggy start, paddocks in key Canadian canola producing provinces were drying out.
Australian new crop values have come back by $15 a tonne in the past fortnight to sit at $517 a tonne delivered to Geelong. Falls in canola have been dwarfed by soybeans, which tumbled eight per cent the past two months.