Local agronomist, Jim Hunt of Hunt Ag Solutions said there were a number of contributing factors.

“A lot of the crops are probably half of what our yield would usually be and that’s due to excessive heat and running out of soil moisture and below average in-crop rainfall,” he said.

“In some situations, there appears to be lower quality sorghum grown as a result of the conditions.

“The area planted sorghum is down; probably down by 50 per cent. South of Gunnedah, down towards Quirindi, it’s down but not by that much because cotton’s taking up a bit of that area and dry land cotton has taken a lot of the area around here that would normally be growing sorghum.”

Mr Hunt said he covers a radius of about 70 kilometres each week, helping growers to monitor their crops.

A number of growers have already begun to harvest their sorghum crops.

“Some of the early reports are coming in now and there’s mixed yields, but generally half of what we generally get, and not all sorghum are poor grade,” he said.

“The season’s just been so extreme with excess heat and limited water. 

“Profiles for up and coming winter crops are very limited and so overall grain production is going to be down over the next 12 months.

“Wheat, chick peas and canola are the main staples that we would sow over the winter but a lot of the profiles are only half full, so we need more rain and in-crop rainfall.”

The agronomist said most of the area’s sorghum was likely to be harvested by the end of March and despite a price fall, sorghum has a “very diverse market”.

“Some [growers] will retain it on farms; they’ll store it in silos until the price may improve – the price is pretty poor at the moment. Some will take it straight into Tangaratta feedlot, some will go into another market again, some might go to export,” he said.

Sorghum is a cereal grain mainly used to feed livestock.