Grain, Seeds, Produce Slack Trading In Small Seeds

Press, Volume C, Issue 29602, 26 August 1961, Page 17

Grain, Seeds, Produce Slack Trading In Small Seeds

Small seeds trading continued to be slack with an absence of overseas inquiries, except for some last Monday, and only a small amount of local business with North Island merchants.

No official range of values is available this week as the merchants’ association considers there is such variation in thought on nominal levels, in the absence of actual trading levels. An unofficial indication of the prices growers might expect, in the opinion of one merchant, was about 10s a bushel for mother ryegrass and between 2s 9d and 3s per lb for good quality white clover. However, there was little business offering. Nominally, the market has not been at such a low ebb since 1957 when there was a glut of supplies. Prices then were below 3s per lb for white clover and about 10s to Ils a bushel for mother perennial, according to old reports.

There is not the same oversupply of white clover this year in stores although there are big stocks of ryegrass to dispose of. Northern Hemisphere crops have been reported to be satisfactory but yields are hot thought to have been high. When the Kawatiri sails next week for Sydney she will carry about 1400 to 1500 tons of potatoes. Of these, nearly 1000 tons will be of brushed unwashed potatoes being sent as a trial shipment. The balance will include a smaller consignment of washed potatoes and several hundred tons of ordinary potatoes for processing. After this there is no ship set down for sailing to Sydney from Lyttelton for about two weeks but it is hoped that one can be arranged sooner. This will take shipping into September and it is doubtful whether much will be sent overseas after the end of that mowth.

Small consignments of potatoes have been sent to many areas this year from Lyttelton. Among these have been about 100 tons of smaller size potatoes to Mauritius, lots of about 30 tons at odd times to Dutch New Guinea and there has even been a trial shipment of a few tons to Hong Kong. These have been in addition to the usual island trade to Fiji and other territories. Some potatoes have been sent to Sydney for transhipment to islands normally drawing potatoes from Australia. On the local scene there has been some business with Auckland but generally the market is quiet with prices in many cases as low as at any time during the season. Shipping space to the North Island is not plentiful. There are still some crops in the ground. More heavy rain in the Pukekohe area will not have helped the early crop which was held up for six weeks in planting. As a result the shipping season for South Island potatoes will probably go on longer this year but there now seems little likelihood of greatly improved prices.

While the quantity of potatoes shipped to Australia has not been as great as was hoped at first, it has been a significantly useful outlet More than 50,000 sacks—about 3300 tons—have been shipped to date and this has brought the total shipping figures from Lyttelton almost up' to test year’s level for the same period. That this has been achieved with the continued low levels of prices this season has emphasised the much higher yields experienced this year. Some inquiry has been received from lower Manawatu merchants for seed potatoes but this trade has been slow to develop this year and there has not been much interest yet from other districts.