The nation's canola crop is tipped to be the smallest in three seasons, but there will only be a relatively small fall off the records of the previous two seasons, meaning the 2023-24 season is likely to slot in as the third largest crop in the past 15 years.
Canola's production footprint, which is skewed towards southern Australia, has held it in good stead this year with crop prospects much stronger in the south than through northern NSW, Queensland and northern WA, where farmers are experiencing dry conditions.
The Australian Oilseeds Federation last week put out its crop report, estimating a national crop of 5.59 million tonnes.
This is below last year's 7.93m tonne record crop and the 6.32m tonnes of 2021-22, the previous record.
However, should it be realised it would be well above any canola crop prior to the past two years.
The production dips will mainly come in Western Australia and NSW, generally Australia's two largest canola producing states, with dry conditions in the north of both states lowering planted area.
WA yields were forecast in the AOF report at 2.58m tonnes, down from 4.26m tonnes last year and NSW is on track for 1.26m tonnes down from 1.65m tonnes.
However, across the southern zone, including NSW's Riverina, Victoria, South Australia and southern WA, crop prospects are strong following unexpectedly solid winter rainfall.
Both South Australia and Victoria are expected to only drop around 100,000 tonnes respectively year on year, with SA set for a 550,000 tonne crop and Victoria 1.2m tonnes.
Grains Industry Western Australia crop report author Mike Lamond said there had been less canola planted in the state's northern zones, but more in low to medium rainfall zones in the eastern Kwinana port zone.
"It was a good start in those areas so farmers were happy to go in early and plant canola, which is looking reasonable having got away and established nice and early," he said.
"Overall, it is a very strong crop for WA, in spite of the 400,000 hectare drop in plantings and the proportionately bigger plant in the lower yielding areas, we are on track for the third largest canola crop on record."
"The early sowing could be really beneficial if it does come in hot and dry as the crop will be less exposed to heat shock than the cereals that went in later.
In Victoria agronomist Craig Drum works in the northern Western District in one of the state's major canola producing regions.
He said farmers were hopeful of another big result.
"There were pockets of waterlogging, primarily in areas that got wet during storms during March and never really dried out properly, the canola on those areas is going to struggle but these are definitely patches and overall things look very good once again," he said.
"The yields are likely to be very strong, but the only thing is we've had a couple of nice kind finishes that have really bolstered averages the last couple of years, so if it is warmer and drier then we probably won't be able to hit those really high end yields no matter how good the crops look at present."
Mr Drum said the long-term average in his area was around 2.8 tonnes a hectare but that had risen to 3.3t/ha or better over the past three seasons.
He said growers had been proactive in managing a hefty slug burden.
"We know we will get slugs in our canola here and people have been diligent in baiting them which has allowed us to keep fairly well in control, there are some patches of damage but not too many paddocks that have been really destroyed."
Nick Goddard, AOF executive officer, said the early season Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecasts for a drier season combined with a softening in prices off the records seen over the past two years has seen growers take a more cautious approach to the area sown to canola this year.
He said the national plant was down with total area down just under 10pc at 3.51m hectares.
Despite the drop in area, the current estimate for area sown is 20pc above the 5 year average and 35pc above the 10 year average, suggesting a greater adoption of canola into farming systems as well as tighter rotations.
Through NSW the AOF report said there were some reasonable crops in the north-eastern cropping belt, but virtually no plant in the north-west.
Central NSW has examples of good early-mid April sown canola which has pushed down into moisture but there is concern about increasingly dry conditions, with farmer Bruce Watson, Parkes, saying he had only received 120mm of growing season rainfall to date.
The AOF said southern NSW is experiencing excellent conditions, which is being reflected in near-ideal plant growth to date.
In South Australia, the AOF said the majority of the crop was sown early after timely Easter rainfall.
June rainfall was well above average which together with above average temperatures in June produced rapid growth and set up a good yield potential.