The Grain Industry Association of Victoria released the results of their crop tour of Victoria and southern NSW this week, suggesting the 2026 crop could break some records.

The grain industry body, consisting of members involved in grain exporting, trading, brokering, transport and logistics, assessed a total of 293 paddocks with 42 assessors last week.

Assessments of row width, tiller counts per metre of row and grains per head were collated via an app to gain a median yield for each crop and region.

Rather than being aligned with the historical rainfall averages, a surprising result was the even spread of high and low yielding crops over the tour routes. Some barley crops near Sea Lake were estimated over 6 tonnes/ha while other wheat crops in the Western District were estimated less than 3.5 tonnes/ha.

This yield spread is consistent with the timely rainfall in the Mallee, the decile 8 to 9 growing season rainfall in the northern Mallee and the decile 2 to 3 rainfall in the Western District.

The GIAV reported that the Mallee, which accounts for half of the state’s area of barley, is a standout region this year.

Rather than the typical two to three, Mallee wheat crops are filling three to four rows wide with some pinched barley and only minor frost damage and fungal disease evident.

Some locusts originating from hatchings further north were noticed in paddocks of the Millewa but not enough to do damage to crops.

Very few paddocks of wheat and barley were cut for hay.

At sowing, higher fuel and fertiliser combined with grower’s concerns over the dry forecast triggered an estimated 33 per cent increase of the area sown to barley in Victoria.

In the Wimmera, crop assessors were surprised how dry the soils had become given the demands of the large early sown crops.

Most wheat crops in the Wimmera are filling four rows wide with frost damage noticed in later sown paddocks.

Crops in the Goulburn Valley and south of Yarrawonga were described as looking very strong with yields increasing north of the Murray River.

The state average yield for barley was 5.48 tonnes/ha, a 37 per cent increase on last year and the highest since the crop tours began in 2016.

This high yield, combined with the increase in area sown, has produced a production estimate of 6.44 million tonnes for the state, a massive 82 per cent increase on last year’s estimate.

Conversely, the area sown to wheat was estimated by the GIAV report at 23 per cent lower but with a yield estimate 52 per cent higher compared to last year’s. At 4.66m tonnes, the estimate for Victoria’s wheat crop is more of an average size in comparison to earlier GIAV estimates.

During the past five years there has been a shift away from wheat and a swing into the higher valued lentil and canola crops.

A full report is available on the GIAV website.