Growers in New Zealand hope for more settled weather before the season’s harvest

Published Jan 16, 2023

Tridge summary

New Zealand farmers are facing challenges in harvesting their crops due to insufficient sunshine, raising concerns about a repeat of the previous season's wet harvest, which was extremely difficult. Despite the initial optimistic weather conditions, there are fears of crop damage from recent rain, particularly affecting clover crops. However, early cereal crops are looking good and grain is holding up so far. The Australian grain and feed market is expected to break records with a forecasted increase in harvest, despite heavy rain affecting wheat quality. As a result, New Zealand farmers anticipate higher prices for their grain in the domestic market, which could help offset the rising input costs such as seed, fertilizer, diesel, and compliance costs.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

Crops are slow to come off this season as harvest drags the chain and arable farmers look to the weather gods for a run of sunny summer days. Across New Zealand, harvesting is being hampered by the lack of sunshine and, while crops are generally looking good, farmers fear a repeat of last season’s disastrously wet harvest. Up until the past couple of weeks summer, conditions had helped crops across the country with optimism in the North Island and promising crops in the South, where the weather had set up Canterbury and Southland for a good season. “We need some settled weather now. The crops don’t need any more rain and we don’t want to end up in a harvest season like last year,” Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers arable chair Darrell Hydes said. “Last year’s harvest was a disaster, it was a tough season with the rain right through and this year crops are doing well and generally looking all right but we want settled weather to get them in.” Early cereal crops are ripening but the ...

Source: Farmersweekly