PARIS, France (Reuters) — Parched soils have hampered late-summer rapeseed seeding in Europe, raising the prospect that farmers will shift toward attractively priced wheat for next year’s harvest, analysts said.
Barley, which like wheat has seen a price rally amid tightening global supplies, could also gain extra area as farmers turn to cereals and cut back on both rapeseed and sugar beets, with the latter affected by a sugar market downturn.
Rainfall in northern Europe this month should also give an advantage to cereal seeding after a torrid summer that hit harvesting and then rapeseed seeding.
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In its first seeding outlook for the 2019-20 harvest, the International Grains Council said it expects the global wheat area to rise for the first time in four seasons, encouraged by higher prices.
The shift toward wheat in the European Union could be reinforced by loss of rapeseed area and a return to normal winter cereal seeding in northern Europe after torrential rain disrupted last year’s campaign, according to analysts.
“All these factors go in favour of an increase in the area of winter wheat and barley,” said Laurine Simon, an analyst with Strategie Grains, but more moisture was needed.
In France, drought has worsened in some regions during a dry, warm September, and a sharp drop in rapeseed area was widely expected.
Oilseed producers group Terres Univia estimates that seeded acres will drop by 370,000 to 620,000 acres compared with slightly more than 3.7 million harvested this year.
Analysts say more rapeseed area could be lost as some crops fail to survive. Persistent dryness could also hinder initial wheat and barley seeding but that it was too early for concern.
In Germany, winter wheat sowings are expected to increase to 7.7 to 7.9 million acres from 7.2 million harvested this past summer, one grains analyst said, adding that the winter barley area could be stable.
“Dry weather during the rapeseed planting period meant rapeseed sowings in Germany were probably cut by at least 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) to under one million hectares (2.5 million acres),” the analyst said.
“Germany had more rain in the past couple of weeks so sowing is progressing reasonably, dryness is causing local difficulties but the national picture is satisfactory.”
In Poland, an increase in wheat plantings is also expected, encouraged by an early corn harvest as well as higher prices, said Wojtek Sabaranski of analysts Sparks Polska.
“Sowing conditions have somewhat improved due to the recent rainfalls, but soil moisture is still not sufficient in many regions, especially in the west and north-west,” he added.
In Britain, improved prices and favourable weather could boost winter wheat plantings, but problems with weed control have raised uncertainty about farmers’ crop choices.
“Farmers are holding off from rushing into planting so that they can get the best possible weed control,” said Jack Watts, chief combinable crops adviser to the National Farmers Union.
