However, the export market is still constrained by the high dollar.

AWB’s 2009-10 estimated pool return (EPR) for Australian Standard White hit $254 a tonne on Monday, a rise of $6/t on the week before.

AWB general manager commodities, Mitch Morison, said the world market was beginning to anticipate the impact of potential reduced wheat area in the US and Canada for the 2010 crop, while dry conditions were also present in parts of the Black Sea region.

Although there was still “ample supply”, Mr Morison said, the market was starting to look ahead to when those stocks were depleted.

Australian Grain Accumulation (AGA) regional co-ordinator, Robert McDougall, Toowoomba, Queensland, said harvest on the Darling Downs was 98 per cent completed, with some late-planted crop still in the ground.

Read more in this week's The Land.