What’s Happening in The Market – April 2021
“Gee, we need a rain!”
is the regular statement we are hearing at the moment. It’s gone from a forecasted La Nina summer to being too dry for sowing. Let’s hope the breaking rain is around the corner as the discussions around a late break are not exciting anyone!
It’s a lot of similar stories here at the moment around the difficulty of getting product into the country. Supply from overseas is still slow and difficult, with frequent delays. Our team in Supply Chain has done a lot of work to ensure we have your sowing product organized. Propyzamide and Simazine are still the two tightest actives for sowing, apart from some of the newer-to-market agency products.
Paraquat remains the most cost-effective knockdown as glyphosate has continued to increase in price every month since last June.
Fertiliser – The phosphate market is drawing to a close, after a season with high prices, tight supply and delayed vessels. Thanks for your patience whilst we’ve worked through some of the challenges with late vessels. Committing early, based on our intel, certainly paid off this year with significant savings per tonne achieved.
The Urea market/price has been just as volatile in 2021, however supply is currently OK and expected to remain that way through Winter/Spring at this stage. Prices however, are unpredictable, and when combined with current dry conditions, determining volumes will be a real challenge.
Post-Emergent Chemicals – Imazamox is tight, and other products seem in good supply at this stage. Clethodim is down in price from recent years, which is good news. A lot of fungicide prices have come back to where they were 3 years ago. Once again, good news for keeping inputs low.
Overall our key message is still
“BE MORE ORGANISED THAN USUAL”
The world is too unpredictable not to be.
Top Ups for Sowing – if you need any top ups for sowing please be in touch with the team and they will get product dropped out to you in quick time. All the best for a safe, and hopefully wet, sowing.
