Current information and news about the crops' development in Australia

12/19/2006: Extreme deviation of weather condition in Australia

The satellite images signalized the upcoming crop growth situation already many weeks ahead of harvest. Crops in Australia suffered from the most severe drought since a number of years. Especially during the grain filling period the dimension of the drought and the high temperatures became apparent (we reported on this on the 6th of November).

An annual comparison of the weather condition during this development stage which is highly sensitive for barley yield formation is visualized in the following figure.

Explanations
The vectors visualize the annual combination of the average daily precipitation and the average daily mean temperature in the grain filling period of barley, shown as deviation from the long-term phase average (origin of the coordinate system, value 0).

The analysis of the deviation from the long-term average (origin of the coordinate system, value 0) reveals the situation. Years showing up in the upper quadrants (I and II) experienced a favourable combination of average daily precipitation and daily mean temperature in the grain filling period, those years in the lower quadrants (III and IV) were characterized by unfavourable weather conditions. According to this, amount of harvest was over or under average, respectively.

In 2006 the year-on-year highest negative deviation of the average daily rainfall coincided with the highest positive deviation of the average daily mean temperature during grain filling of barley (quadrant IV). In the opposite, the highest positive deviation of the amount of rain was registered in 2005 (quadrant II). Due to this, the simultaneously occurring positive deviation of the temperature did not damage the crops and peak values of 2.5 t barley per ha were harvested in West Wyalong in 2005. In 2006 only 0.69 t/ha are expected.

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11/06/2006: Grain filling stage beats all records in the Australian East

_{CW 43}

As if it were not enough that the Australian Farmers’ Association regards this year’s drought as the worst in the last 100 years: By focussing our attention on single growing areas further miserable records arise.

_{Grain filling West Wyalong}

In West Wyalong for instance, one of the eastern growing regions of New South Wales, grain filling stage has been the shortest of the last 6 years, temperatures the highest, precipitation level and vegetation index the lowest (see graph on the right). Calculated on the basis of the information derived from the satellite images, the vegetation index states the rate of the crops’ biomass and vitality, which thus both occur to be on the lowest level of the last 6 years.

Consequentially, this year’s barley harvest will be down far below long-term average and total crop failures will even be likely in many growing areas. In West Wyalong 2006 joins the years 2002 and 2004 in which the lowest yields of respectively 7 and 4 dt/ha were reached. According to the alarming information from the last weeks’ satellite images and the dramatic data of the grain filling phase, IntelCrop estimates the barley crop yield for this region at 6,9 dt/ha.

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