Cold, dry conditions is delaying the development of winter crops across Europe.

The colder than usual weather has also delayed the sowing and emergence of spring crops according to the latest EU crop monitoring (MARS) report published by the European Commission earlier this week.

Some small cuts have been made by the Commission to yield forecasts, especially in France. Countries including the UK, France and Spain have been identified as areas in rain deficit.

Yield impact

The intensive cold wave in April did not cause any substantial additional damage to soft winter wheat across Europe, according to the report.

Frost may have caused some damage to emerging early sown spring and summer crops, such as spring barley, sugar beet and potatoes.

However, spring barley has been negatively affected, especially in Slovakia, Czechia and northern Hungary by a combination of cold and dry weather, it states.

Low temperatures in France are expected to have caused damage to durum wheat, as well as to early winter rapeseed varieties, which were exposed to low temperatures during the sensitive stage of flowering.

Part of the early sown sugar beet needs to be re-sown. However, in the main production regions for sugar beet (as well as potatoes), most of these crops had not yet emerged and are expected to have suffered little or no damage.

The USDA also released its latest crop condition report earlier this week. So far 17% of the planned maize area is planted.