PARIS, France – Mild temperatures and timely rains are favouring
western European winter grain crops, in sharp contrast to last year’s
weather that turned the European Union into a wheat importer.
“Overall the picture is good,” a German grains analyst said. “We had
had a lot of rain throughout Germany but generally the condition of
grain plantings is good and there has been no perceptible weather
damage so far.”
Although he sounded a minor alarm about the lack of snow in the main
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grain producing regions, the analyst said mild temperatures had allowed
farmers to spread fertilizer and crop protection chemicals.
“Early completion of this work increases the chances of good grain
yields and quality, provided there is no sudden very cold snap,” he
said.
In parts of eastern, central and southern Germany, some farmers have
started planting spring grains. But in some northern areas the ground
is too wet for tractors to work.
The same general picture is true in France, where the winter soft wheat
area is 10 percent higher thanks to the absence of the kind of heavy
rain that disrupted sowing last year.
“The weather situation does not appear at this stage to have had any
noteworthy negative effect on crops, which for the most part have
benefitted from good conditions in complete contrast with the previous
season,” the French farm ministry said in its monthly crop report.
Spring planting has not yet begun in France due to wet weather, but
experts did not yet see a problem.
“For the moment there is no urgent concern,” said Aurelie Geille, a
plant physiologist with French crop institute ITCF.
Favourable weather in Germany and France – the EU’s two biggest farm
producers – is the reason analysts are forecasting bigger grain crops
this year in the 15-nation bloc.
French analysis firm Strategie Grains earlier this month pegged EU 2002
soft wheat production at 97.4 million tonnes, up 16 percent from last
year, while EU barley output is seen rising 4.4 percent to 49.8 million
tonnes.
Italy and Britain also have better crop weather. British winter crops
have flourished and are now on a par with some of the most advanced
years out of the last four of five, with little or no disease damage to
date.
“The concern is perhaps the crops are a little too large and a little
too dense so there is probably a higher lodging risk,” said John
Garstang, agronomist with leading UK crop consultancy ADAS.
He said there was no great risk of frost damage because seedlings were
not advanced enough to be affected.
Garstang said Britain is still on track for a record 2002 harvest,
pegging the total wheat crop at between 17.5-18 million tonnes, broadly
in line with farm ministry projections.
Wheat plantings in Italy have benefitted from recent rains after a long
period of dry, freezing weather that had raised some concern.
Grain traders said they felt farm research group ISMEA’s estimate was
conservative that soft wheat area for the 2002 crop would jump 15
percent year-on-year to 1.8 million acres.
