Central West NSW

Grain commentary

Hay commentary

The production season has now finished for Lucerne in the central west. I has been a tough year for lucerne producers along the Lachlan and the years production has been severely restricted as a consequence of wet weather and flooding. Some suggest a drop of 35% in lucerne production in the central west.
Chaffing mills are having to look further afield to source hay, however prices appear to be relatively stable. Lucerne for the horse market is commanding an $80/mt premium at $280-300/mt ex farm.
Demand is beginning to strengthen for lucerne as conditions rapidly cool.
There is a flurry of broadacre sowing activity with canola and grazing wheats. Grain and hay producers are looking for rain as surface soil is crusting.
With the large acreages of lucerne taken out of production throughout the region from the floods, there could be a great deal of pressure on supply from the region over the next 12 months.
There appears to be a reasonable supply of weather damaged hay from earlier cuts that suffered bleaching from rain. It is just not quite the quality that chaff processors and horse markets demand.
Some stacks of hay in sheds have had the bottom bales ruined with water pooling around sheds.
Some small volumes of high quality lucerne are being exported from the region
Summer crops have been a valuable feed source for dairy cows reducing the amount of hay and silage as a supplement.
Similar to other parts of the country, acreages cut for cereal hay were down, as most cereals went through to grain.
This region, a traditional supplier to the Bega Valley has lost that market due to the good season in Bega.