Smaller Australian Pulse Harvest Seen

SYDNEY - Jun 20/06 - SNS -- Australian government forecasters painted a less optimistic outlook for this year's pulse crops in Australia, reducing forecast area and yields for all major classes grown in the country.

The June crop progress report from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resources Economics (ABARE) predicts total winter crop seedings will decline 6% in Australia to around 20 million hectares, while a return to average yields because of a drier than average season would generate an 11% decline in output of all crops to around 36 million metric tons (MT).

Forecast reductions are based in part on the shire scale wheat forecasting system of the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries combines starting soil moisture conditions with the seasonal outlook. The outlook at the beginning of June is for a less than 40% chance of exceeding long term median yields across most of the growing regions in Queensland and New South Wales.

Throughout Victoria the chances of exceeding long term median yields vary between 10 and 80%. South Australia is also highly variable, with chances between 20 and 100%. Western Australia’s chance of exceeding long term median yields is the most variable, between zero and 100%.

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