June 14, 2012

 

Rain hits UK wheat crops, boosts French, German yields

 

 

The UK wheat crop, affected by crop disease, has been further damaged with continued rainfall, whereas more gentle levels of precipitation lifted some speculations for French and German yields.

 

The UK's HGCA crop bureau said that, while domestic crops still had "good yield potential", realising it would mean overcoming "increased disease pressure" fostered by the wettest April in at least a century, and persistent rain since.

 

"June so far has been a disappointing month, raising concern for both disease and lodging," HGCA senior analyst Jack Watts said.

 

Sarah Watts, at consultancy Adas, named septoria as the "biggest threat, particularly with the continuation of the unsettled weather" but with fusarium, another fungal disease, potentially a "problem".

 

"Increased lodging risk is also an issue," thanks to the extent of rainfall bending over crops which thanks a strong start are notably high.

 

The comments on the EU's third-biggest wheat crop contrast with improved hopes which rain has brought to crops in second-ranked Germany, where some had feared dryness might take production below 22 million tonnes, down from 22.7 million tonnes last year, which was itself considered a weak crop.

 

"Germany has got the rains it needed, and conditions have considerably improved," FCStone commodity risk manager Jaime Nolan Miralles told Agrimoney.com, flagging expectations of a 22.4-million-tonne crop.

 

Meanwhile, in France, the EU's biggest wheat grower, Agrimoney.com has heard speculation among well-placed sources that the soft wheat crop could exceed 35 million tonnes, up from last year's 34-million-tonne crop after rain countered concerns raised by spring drought.

 

FranceAgriMer on Friday (June 8) estimated that 72% of the domestic soft wheat crop was in "good" or "excellent" condition, compared with 24% a year before.

 

Separately, Jean-Francois Isambert, secretary general of France's AGPB farmers' group, said that the country "should have a wheat crop that is at least equivalent to last year's", despite weather setbacks which also included winterkill from a February cold snap.

 

Indeed, even if wet weather continued "we shouldn't have problems with quality", he said, noting growers' success in applying agrichemicals.

 

AGPB actually estimated the crop at 33.9 million tonnes, marginally below last year's result, although farmers' groups are often viewed as conservative with their estimates.

 

The downgrade reflected cuts to estimates for German output, reduced by 700,000 tonnes to 21.8 million tonnes, and the Polish harvest, downgraded to 8.1 million tonnes, only in part offset by a 500,000-tonne upgrade, to 37 million tonnes in the estimate for all French wheat, including durum.