CROP forecasters are ramping up their projections for the upcoming Australian harvest.
Ikon Commodities last week came out with an estimated Australian winter crop of in excess of 50 million tonnes, the second year in a row the crop will crack the magical 50m tonnes figure.
The Ikon team pointed to strong growing season rainfall through Australia's major two grain growing states, WA and NSW as the major catalysts for the bullish outlook.
And the 50m tonne mark is not necessarily the top possible yield.
Ole Houe, Ikon chief executive said growers were hopeful that a favourable spring could continue to fatten final tonnages and take this year past last year's record 54 million tonnes.
Ikon has the national wheat crop at 33m tonnes, 34 per cent above the 10 year average, barley is at 11.8m tonnes and canola at a record 5.2m tonnes, a staggering 51pc above the 10 year average and 14pc above last year's previous record crop.
Meanwhile the influential US Department of Agriculture has upgraded its production estimates for Australian wheat.
While not as bullish at Ikon, the USDA lifted its estimate to 30m tonnes, up 5.3pc on its previous report, due to 'abundant precipitation'.
International grain markets are closely monitoring the situation in Australia, which is expected to be an important source of supply given shortfalls in key exporting areas like Canada and the US Pacific Northwest.