Cropping & Soil
4 December, 2025
Wimmera barley ‘cloak and dagger” price outlook
WITH the Mallee harvest coming in, Wimmera farmers have been watching to see what yields are likely, especially with the generally above-average rainfall in October and November following an earlier extended dry.
Manangatang farmer, Christine Plant, said the general outcome for her area in the Mallee between Swan Hill and Mildura was that crops sown early did well.
“Anything that got sown early – on or before the Anzac Day rain – looked really good all the way through, and anything late sown, towards the end of May, especially on heavy ground, really struggled with germination and never looked much good,” she said.
“I've heard reports of going three and a half to four tonnes – (that) seems to be the norm. But I've heard of a barley crop going two, and then I've heard of a barley crop going 5.2.”
She also said summer preparation helped, despite the relatively modest growing season rainfall.
“Anybody that had good summer weed management and kept the weeds off in the summer – the crops were able to access that subsoil moisture, and that's probably why the crops did reasonably well,” Ms Plant said.
“People are saying how the barley has done so well, and people are very pleased. But I think it's because the barley went in early and there was some moisture there.”
With the later harvest in the Wimmera, Carron/Boolite farmer, Jason Mellings, has his own take on the likely outcomes locally, especially when significant differences exist with the crop within relatively small distances.
“You're gonna get a lot of variabilities,” he said.
“I'm here in north of Minyip, but ... around here, I think the barley yields are actually pretty reasonable for the year. We haven't had a lot of rain; it's been more or less a drought year.
“I'm hearing yields of anywhere from two tonne to four tonne, it's a very it's a big spread (of) total yields.
“I'm hearing a lot of it's Feed 1, some of it Feed 2 ... the prices aren't extremely high, but I don't think they're terrible either.”
He said with the Feed 1 prices hovering at about $280 as a “ballpark price”, he expected that to firm up somewhat.
“I'd like to think that'll go up once the headers stop,” Mr Mellings said.
“It's not what you call a huge price (but) at the same time, it's not terrible either.
“Normally, Feed 1 barley, it's nice to get $300, but 280 is not far behind. It's good, it could be a lot worse.”
He said the current prices were likely to do better than just cover costs, so the outlook was still on the positive side and admitted the good yields in other parts of Australia had affected the market.
“The rest of Australia’s been good,” Mr Mellings said.
“New South Wales, on a whole, has been good. Southern Queensland, the grain growers through there, the (Darling) Downs, all through there's been really good.
South Australia is a bit of a mixed bag, but still, there's some good areas there as well in places.
“Even south of Horsham, you’ll find it’s pretty good as well.
“It’s really that northern Wimmera, Mallee just doing it tough, especially around Birchip and places like that.
“I would say the market’s not really desperate for it in Australia, because there's plenty there.”
Mr Mellings said it was likely that there would be some “cloak and dagger” with some farmers in that area holding onto their grain for better prices.
“So the market’s going to have to come in with some decent numbers before people let it go,” he said.
“I think most people are probably strong enough to say, ‘stuff it, we'll hang on to it (until) the price gets to where we want it’, within reason.
“We're not going to sell it at cost price. We do need half decent prices to get that cost back.
“So there's going to be a bit of that going on this year I’d say.”