The demand for herbicides, such as Round Up, as farmers anticipate bumper winter harvests together with the resultant shortage in supply, has seen prices almost triple in the past five months.

Alistair Kelly, from ‘Hillview’ near Wongarbon, said fallowed paddocks on the property had already been sprayed for weeds and grasses twice since the wheat harvest in November, and could be sprayed twice more before sowing canola in April.

He conducted a cost analysis which found that to date it had cost $50.64 per hectare to spray on the property during 2008, compared with $28.32 per hectare in 2007.

Fertiliser had more than doubled, rising from $51.30 per hectare to $103.50 per hectare, while diesel had risen from $1.27 per litre to $1.48 per litre.

Spraying fallowed paddocks and keeping wheat stubble is an essential process for maintaining the soil moisture profile needed to grow grain crops.

Mr Kelly remained hopeful of maintaining profit margins, with the likelihood of rising commodity costs offsetting the rising spray costs.

“The rain has provided good subsoil moisture,” Mr Kelly said. “But obviously we will still need more rain to join it up with surface moisture for good germination,” Mr Kelly said.

“Hopefully, because of the cost, we won’t need to spray again until the day before sowing, but if it rains in the meantime we probably will.

“The big thing this year is there is a lot more confidence. We haven’t sown canola, which is a good rotation crop to replace wheat, for a long time because there has not been enough moisture.”

His father John Kelly was sceptical of the price hike and blames it on a monopoly in the market.

“Us farmers are suspicious that we are seen as easy pickings because of the better growing conditions,” John Kelly said.

“But we need to do all this to realise our potential, which we haven’t seen for some time.

Furney’s CRT agronomist David Strahorn said a shortage of supply had been frustrating and predicted the price of herbicides and fertilisers to continue to rise.

“The sprays are doing a good job but the rain just keeps coming and more and more weeds keep coming through,” Mr Strahorn said. “The higher input costs increases the risk to the farmer but it is indicating that the wheat should be reasonably priced.

“If it is not a good season the benefit of spraying could be lost. However, if it is a bumper year those who cut costs in fallow spraying could be the ones to miss out.”

bill.north@ruralpress.com