Wheat crop below early forecast

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 19

Wheat crop below early forecast

New Zealand is not going to produce as much wheat this year as was earlier expected. The general manager o£ the Wheat Board, Mr A. G. Elliott, said at the end of last week that a survey carried out through the board’s brokers indicated that the crop would produce about 40,000 tonnes less than was required., . Last year the board imported 53,000 tonnes from

Australia to meet a shortfall from the 1980 crop. Wheat will. have to be imported again this year, and Mr Elliott said that the board’s import programme would begin in the latter half of June with. the landing of the cargo of 5000 tonnes of Australian wheat for the flourmills at Auckland. The Auckland mills and those situated at Mount Maunganui would continue to receive wheat from Bluff interspersed with shipments

from Australia. This shipping programme would assist these mills in blending wheat from Timaru, which had shown some evidence of sprout. The survey information also indicated'that the quantity of wheat for shipment from Bluff to the North Island this year would be down by about 11,000 tonnes in comparison with the quantity moved from Southland last year. Mr Elliott said that the proposed programme of wheat movement to the Auckland and Mount Maunganui mills for the rest of the year would not affect the movement of Mid-Canter-bury wheat to the mills in the lower half of the North "Island. Mid-Canterbury wheat would also be moved to North Otago mills and Southland wheat to Dunedin mills to make up for shortfalls in milling supplies in those areas.

Commenting on the fact that the size of the New Zealand crop this year would not be as great’ as earlier expected, Mr Elliott said that this was due to the quantities reported to the Wheat Research Institute, when samples were sent in for testing, having fallen well short of quantities estimated by the Ministry, of Agriculture in some' districts. .

This was particularly so, in North Canterbury. The quantity reported from this district was only about $2 cent of the Ministry’s estimate. For other areas in Canterbury the quantities reported were South Canterbury 76 per cent of the estimate, Mid-Canterbury 89 per cent and central Canterbury 96 per cent. In North Otago, however, it seemed that the crop would be over the estimate and in the rest of Otago and in Southland about on the estimates. , , •;