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Barley blues eased

Jenne BrammerThe West Australian
Aaron Edmonds.
Camera IconAaron Edmonds. Credit: The West Australian

Calingiri farmer Aaron Edmonds has put aside concerns that much of his barley crop would be downgraded after the recent heavy summer rains.

Up to 27mm of rain fell across his property two weekends ago when late hail and downpours drenched many of WA's grain growing areas.

But Mr Edmonds said the application of late season fungicide has helped his 400ha Baudin variety barley crop to weather the storm.

He was about a third of the way through harvesting barley when the rain arrived.

Although the rain did create some colour deterioration, this was not severe enough to see the barley downgraded.

"The main reason for that is our late season fungicide applications have carried better quality into the drying, so we are not seeing the staining we probably would have had we not had the fungicidal protection," he said.

Feedback from fellow farmers is that those who had applied late season fungicidal applications were in a far stronger position after the rain than those that did not.

The fungicidal application also protected the crops from lodging, Mr Edmonds said.

The Nuffield scholar, who farms with parents Charlie and Margaret, and wife Hilda, said he had applied the late season fungicide every season on Baudin because of its lower fungal resistance relative to other varieties.

"The newer barley varieties are more resilient so many growers did not apply fungicide late in the season. But just the way the season has played out, the natural tolerances have not been enough to protect them from the late rains," he said.

Mr Edmonds said he would continue his fungicide regime on barley, especially after discovering the added benefit of its protection from summer rains.

The Edmonds family finished harvesting their barley this week, yielding 3.8 tonnes a hectare and moved on to start harvesting the 600ha canola crop, to be followed by the 800ha wheat crop.

Wheat appeared to be unaffected by the summer downpour because it was still holding some moisture.

Similarly, canola was already in windrows so was unaffected.

Meanwhile, Mr Edmonds said he was pleased with the malting barley price, fetching $296/t FIS at Kwinana.

With widespread downgrades anticipated from the rain, he envisages this could contribute to a strengthening of the malting price and weakening of feed barley prices (currently $252/t FIS Kwinana).

Mr Edmonds had already sold around two-thirds of his current year's barley and expects to price the remainder in coming weeks.

Profarmer commodity analyst Hannah Janson said there were two key reasons for the strong malting barley premiums.

First, there was strong interest from China, an important global customer, for high quality Australian malting and feed barley, which was supporting barley demand.

"Secondly, a smaller global barley crop (production is forecast 4.2 per cent lower year on year) combined with quality downgrades following wet EU and Canadian harvests is helping to support premiums for malt barley over feed across the international marketplace," she said.

"As a major contributor to world barley trade, particularly malt barley, the finish to the Australian season will be critical to global malt supply especially given the tight situation elsewhere in the world. Hence depending on how our harvest progresses there may be more support under malt premiums than normal this year."

CBH general manager of operations David Capper said it was too early to determine what impact the recent late summer rains would have on the quality of the WA's barley harvest.

But CBH is encouraging West Australian growers to target three main varieties of barley in 2015 - Bass, Scope and Hindmarsh.

CBH Group head of trading Don Campbell said CBH was receiving strong demand for each of these varieties and are confident they are already well established.

"In addition to this, CBH will be targeting limited volumes of Baudin and Commander varieties within the Kwinana Zone only, to fulfil specific demand," he said.

"Buloke, while still having strong demand, will be replaced with the agronomically superior Scope variety. Vlamingh and Gairdner will not be targeted by the CBH Group in 2015, as volumes of both of these varieties have now fallen below the critical levels required to warrant their continued production."

Mr Campbell said CBH is currently performing market evaluations for Granger, LaTrobe and Flinders, but it is too early to promote any of these varieties for large 2015 production.

"Growers should not expect strong demand or superior premiums for these varieties in 2015, as the market acceptance and demand is yet to be established," he said.

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