Across the EU, yield expectations for almost all crops have been downgraded. According to the latest MARS crop bulletin, these reductions are most severe for rapeseed, winter barley and winter wheat.

However for spring barley, downward revisions of the yield forecasts in most countries were offset by an upward revision in Spain.

Growth

In large parts of western and central Europe, above-average temperatures, high radiation levels and insufficient precipitation to replenish soil moisture levels has negatively impacted the growth of winter and early planted spring crops.

Figure 1: Dryness has been a key issue in many parts of the continent.

In eastern Romania and western Ukraine, crops are stunted and are showing signs of wilting and early leaf senescence.

Stress

In eastern France, eastern United Kingdom, the Benelux countries, the northern half of Germany and western Poland, as well as in southern Czechia, western Slovakia, Austria, eastern Italy, Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia, weather conditions have been very dry.

As a consequence, crop biomass accumulation slowed down with actual crop conditions generally worse than in 2019.

Moreover, in most of these regions, little or no rain is forecast in the coming days, as winter cereals are approaching the sensitive flowering stage.

Crop biomass accumulation slowed down with actual crop conditions generally worse than in 2019

As for rapeseed, the conditions of water stress already experienced partially coincided with the flowering and/or early grain filling stage.

In eastern Romania and western Ukraine, the condition of crops worsened due to the ongoing drought and crops are generally stunted and present signs of wilting and early leaf senescence.

Crop yields

Forecasted crop yields have all been reduced with the exception of spring barley. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: Across the EU, yield expectations for almost all crops have been downgraded.

European wheat prices were boosted further as a result of this report.

Earlier in the week, Stratégie Grains reduced its forecast of old-crop EU-28 (including the UK) wheat stocks by 1.1Mt. They see increased exports more than outweighing further demand losses due to the coronavirus on ethanol, and to a lesser extent starch and milling.