AUSTRALIA is set to consolidate on last year's good harvest if early forecast for the 2021-22 crop come to fruition.
While official Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates are not yet out, other forecasters have dipped their toe in the water at this early stage of the season.
IKON Commodities have come out with a number of 29.5 million tonnes of wheat nationwide.
While this is well back on their figure for last year's crop of 34.8m tonnes, it is still well above long-term historical averages.
IKON raised wheat by 1 million tonnes in its latest estimates due to the favourable planting conditions in NSW and Western Australia, traditionally the nation's two largest wheat producing states.
Dry conditions in SA and Victoria did not deter the forecaster from adding extra yield to its estimates.
Canola is a clear stand-out, with production forecast to be 4.7 m tonnes, which would be one of the largest crops on record.
IKON is banking on a large plant, with farmers looking to squeeze extra hectares into canola due to the sky-high prices on offer for the oilseed at present.
Barley is flagged at 10.5 tonnes, an increase of 450,000 tonnes on the last update.
IKON's numbers cannot be dismissed as an outlier.
The US Department of Agriculture came up with a wheat estimate of 27 million tonnes, a high number for a traditionally conservative forecaster, which normally sticks very close to the long-term median of 25 million tonnes when making predictions in the austral autumn.