WIDESPREAD heavy rain throughout much of the Wheatbelt has had a devastating effect on the State's commercial hay industry this season.
Hay Australia director Andrew Bolt said while there would still be lots of hay available, quality issues were now the main concern for growers and exporters.
He said Australia had long been considered a regular and reliable supplier of quality hay by its overseas customers but the combination of a number of dry seasons followed by what turned out to be an unseasonably wet one in WA didn't do Australia's image as a steadfast supplier any good.
In the short-term farmers and exporters struggled to establish the level of quality being produced in the State and tried to wrap their heads around what Mr Bolt described as a "very incomplete picture" of WA's current hay situation.
"A few weeks ago there was a lot of hay around with weather damage but most of it at least had some commercial value," he said.
"But certainly with the last week of rainfall a lot of it now has no commercial value to both the export or domestic markets."
Though Mr Bolt believed WA farmers wouldn't necessarily run into local supply issues next year he warned growers to be vigilant of mouldy hay which could pose serious health risks to stock if not managed properly.
"We still have growers who are trying to rescue as much hay as they can and we'll be working very closely with them and our customers to see what quality level they're prepared to accept," Mr Bolt said.
"Our customers are also trying to assess what the implications are, whether or not they can fill their quotas by purchasing from South Australia and Victoria and to what extent they're prepared to review their quality standards."
Gilmac general manager Munro Patchett said in his 18 years of exporting hay he had never seen a worse situation in WA.
He said Gilmac had spent the last few weeks grading bales to determine quality and talking to growers about how their hay could be marketed.
"Gilmac still has several thousand hectares of its own hay crops cut and laying on the ground," Mr Patchett said.
"We're considering getting a forage harvester to pick it all up, cut it into smaller pieces and blow it back out onto the paddock to be mulched in for next year."
He said it was difficult to predict what impact the recent rain would have on the country's hay export industry but in the short-term farmers should focus on their grain crops and worry about cleaning up hay after harvest.
But despite the bad run of weather and its impact on the local industry, Mr Patchett said early predictions suggested the overall long-term consequences of the rain probably wouldn't be as bad as Hay Australia's Andrew Bolt suggested.
"Australian oaten hay is just that, it's not WA hay, it's from all States and South Australia and Victoria are having a reasonable run," he said.
"So the overall reputation of the country will reflect some supply and varying grades."
For many others involved in the stock feed industry it was still too early to tell what ramifications the rain had had.
Macco Feeds manager Phil Beresford, Williams, said it would be another three weeks before he could know for sure.
Buying in 56,000 tonnes of grain and straw a year Macco Feeds produces more than 100,000t of high fibre pellets for the live export and domestic markets.
"For now we're just ticking along because we're still using old season grain," Mr Beresford said.
"Without a doubt things have slowed down production wise and the quality of grain and straw will drop off.
"We're pre-empting some big quality issues.
"Protein will be down and we've had reports of burst grain."
But poor quality grain wouldn't affect the standard of pellets produced by the mill because Macco changed its formulation to accommodate reduced protein levels.
"At this stage the rain hasn't had a huge effect on us, it might yet even benefit us in hindsight," Mr Beresford said.
"We'll probably be able to use some of the State's downgraded hay depending on toxin levels and higher volumes of feed grain will bring cheaper purchase prices for us."
