Analysts are becoming increasingly confident in yield predictions that will lead the nation to what could be one of the biggest year-on-year recovery in crop production in the past 50 years.
And Australia could also set to recover its mantle as one of the world's largest wheat exporters after two well below average years caused by the east coast drought.
Rain across the nation in the past week has either bolstered prospects of a bumper harvest, with the majority of regions looking at average to above average yields, or shored up crops in the short term in areas getting dry.
Greg Kuchel, Rural Bank regional agribusiness manager, based in Swan Hill in the Victorian Mallee, said crops through northern Victoria and southern NSW were back on track after rain.
"There was a positive start, then a very dry winter had people nervous, but then we had 15-25mm over the weekend which has improved crops out of sight and the short term outlook is promising for a little more, so we'd still be targeting above-average yields in this part of the world," Mr Kuchel said.
And there is further room for upside, with StoneX senior derivatives dealer Nick Orssich saying estimates could be ramped up again in the next round of estimates if current favourable weather patterns persisted.
Both ANZ and StoneX have issued national wheat production numbers in excess of 26 million tonnes, which is above the historical mean, while Rural Bank is flagging a 45pc rebound in the total winter crop.
ANZ's agri research director Michael Whitehead said his organisation was expecting a crop of 26m tonnes, which would be a 71pc year on year increase on last year's 15.2m tonnes.
He also flagged wheat exports of 17.5m tonnes, which is an incredible 90pc year on year rise with east coast ports set to resume exporting rather than importing intercontinental shipments of grain as they have for the past two years.
At StoneX Mr Orssich said the expectation was for a wheat crop of 26.87m tonnes. Central to the figure is a NSW crop of 9.2m tonnes, over 4.5 times last year's crop of 2m tonnes.
"There's certainly a really good rebound in NSW, the central west looks really good, the far north-west cropping area where there was virtually no grain is also looking much better so this is a critical part to the rebound in national production," Mr Orssich said.
It all adds up to a potent combination when assessing a bumper harvest, with scope for Australia's national crop outlook to move higher.
Gregor Heard
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
Gregor Heard is ACM's national grains industry reporter, based in Horsham, Victoria. He has a wealth of knowledge surrounding the cropping sector through his 15 years in the role. Prior to that he was with the Fairfax network as a reporter with Stock & Land. Some of the major issues he has reported on during his time with the company include the deregulation of the export wheat market, the introduction of genetically modified crops and the fight to protect growers better from grain trader insolvencies. Still involved with the family farm he is passionate about rural Australia and its people and hopes to use his role to act as an advocate for those involved in the grain sector.
