PRODUCERS banking on a repeat of big summer lamb prices this year could be disappointed.

Nationally last year, the greatest price spikes for lamb were seen in summer and autumn, where carcass-weight rates were up to 151c/kg higher than a year earlier.

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While winter has traditionally been the best time to sell prime lambs, the price gap between 2010 and 2011 was the widest in autumn and summer.

The National Livestock Reporting Service has just released a national analysis of lamb prices, which compared last year to 2010.

It showed prices last summer were 98-151c/kg higher than the year before, while autumn's premiums were also strong.

Last autumn producers saw some of the highest lamb prices ever paid, with restocker lambs averaging 660c/kg, and trade lambs 613c/kg.

By winter, trade lamb rates had fallen to 515c/kg, and were selling cheaper than they were a year earlier.

Ellis Nuttal agent Kevin Stratton from Bendigo said farmers were notorious for trying to pick the best time to sell and often based that decision on what happened a year ago.

"Year-to-year variances can be due to circumstance, so you need to be careful," Mr Stratton said.

"No two years seem to be the same in the lamb markets."

He said many farmers had held lambs after a wet winter failed to produce good-quality suckers.

"There are enormous numbers of lambs out in the paddocks, and that's been widely reported," he said.

"So all I want to say is that we will all be watching the opening lamb markets carefully and it's going to be a very interesting year to sell lambs."

Sheepmeat Council of Australia president Ian McColl said it would be unrealistic for producers to expect prices to spike so dramatically again this summer and autumn.

But he said it was "probably good for everyone" if the industry could sustain values of 500-550c/kg.

"When the price jumped 150c/kg last summer and autumn, it wasn't sustainable," Mr McColl said.

"At prices around the 500-550c/kg mark, you are getting as much for a heavy lamb as you are for a tonne of wheat, so I think that puts it into perspective."

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences predicts lamb saleyard prices will average 540c/kg carcass weight this financial year.

ABARES said export demand should stabilise prices despite the increased production.