“The flip side is our costs have gone up hugely with fertiliser, diesel and labour and it’s surprising how these compliance costs are creeping up on us. Rates are going up, with interest rates up quite significantly and are forecast to increase more. We really need a good harvest.”
Hurst has already brought in some turnip seed between Christmas and New Year at his South Canterbury family farm.
Nui ryegrass was harvested for seed a couple of weeks ago.
“That’s been going OK and is about the normal time for Nui. Nui is one of the early ones and later ryegrass will be coming in probably another two to three weeks. The Nui [yields] have been nearer 2000kg to the hectare which we are quite happy with.”
He said the rains had arrived at the right time in a season so far without many weather headaches and they had managed to keep on top of disease with fungicide sprays.
Wheat crops were maturing nicely with their harvest due to start at the end of January.
“That’s looking all right too, but of course, you don’t really know until you get into it.
“The dull weather and lack of sunshine can have an impact on yield. It’s early days really with the grass seed and we just need all sun. We don’t need all this rain they’ve got in the North Island or we will be getting back to last year with the harvest from hell.”
He said growers were looking forward to the return of normal farming after last season’s “dire” harvest of continual rain and crop sprouting.
“Fingers crossed we get some normal harvest weather. February is the full-on month and there’s not a day goes by without any harvesting happening as long as the weather’s right.”
Most of the crops took some sort of hit last year from late rain with some grass seed crops so poor they were written off.
The poor harvest hurt cashflows squeezed by rising costs and growers have since invested in dryers and storage systems to reduce the risk. Crops can now be harvested above recommended moisture levels and removed from paddocks sooner.
Hurst said there was light ahead with Ballance dropping their nitrogen prices last week and growers would be looking at overseas indexes for fertiliser to see if they’re still on the high side.
Another positive was that growers are in closer talks with flour companies about milling wheat prices.
Hurst said prices were up with more crop in the ground as a result of several conversations with the flour mills.
“We are also in good discussions with the seed companies for all the seed crops we grow. They are on board with looking to lift our prices for the specialist seed crops because the cost of production has significantly increased.
“With the poor harvest, it’s made a lot of growers really focus on how profitable some of these crops are and it’s been a bit of a lightbulb moment.”
An exception to rising prices is Nui ryegrass, which appears to be slipping from some contract prices at $250/kg.
Nui ryegrass does not have royalty payments attached and is one of the larger seed crops with about 9000ha planted this season.
Hurst said most of the commodity grass seed was exported, but there was an over-supply in the northern hemisphere at the moment.
This was mostly for the turf and lawn market and homeowners were spending less money after improving their lawns during Covid-19 lockdowns because of the downturn in the economy.
Grass seed exports mostly for forage in the Australasian market were still strong and arable growers had the ability to change the mix of their crop options if prices got too low, Hurst said.
