Benign weather has lifted hopes for German crops, with the wheat harvest in the EU's second biggest producer now set to rise.

The country avoided the dry weather which dogged French and UK crops to the west, and floods which dogged Hungary and Poland to the east.

"Weather conditions were relatively beneficial for growth, with somewhat productive precipitation in late May and early June," the farming co-operative Deutscher Raiffeisenverband (DRV) said.

"The foundation has been laid for a harvest with above-average quality."

The co-operative, in its second upgrade in two months, lifted its forecast for Germany's winter wheat production – in essence, the whole wheat crop - by 228,000 tonnes to just short of 25 million tonnes.

The revision puts the crop on course narrowly to beat last year's.

The DRV lifted its hopes for rapeseed too, of which Germany is the largest producer. However, it still expected some reductions, especially in the north and eastern states, leaving output at 5.91 million tonnes, down 5.9% from last year's record harvest.