Spring barley gets off to a good start

The spring barley harvest seems to be getting off to a far better start than the winter crop. Early crops harvested through last weekend and into this week have all been pleasing and perhaps surprising.

Yield reports to date range from 2.8t/ac to 4t/ac, mainly on light land and following early sowing. Most of the early crops were for malting.

Protein levels so far have been quite low, which is what is expected from these early crops, but some may be too low even for distilling. Otherwise, grain quality is good so far.

Winter oats seems to be having a mainly good year with many crops yielding either side of 4t/ac. Grain quality is good, even on the crops that have not yielded so well.

Oilseed rape harvesting continues with many crops around and above 2t/ac. Yields tend to be consistently good across the southeast with more yield variability elsewhere and an occasional yield down to 1.6t/ac.

While still not fully completed, the winter barley crop will be classed as disappointing. Crops in the northeast fared best but there were highly variable and disappointing grain yields across much of the rest of the country.

Winter wheat harvesting began this week but there are no solid indications yet, other than grain size was disappointing.

It seems that most merchants are set to adjust their grain moisture bonuses and deductions to €3 per point below and above 20% to reflect higher weight loss value and the higher cost of energy. This has been €2/percentage for many years. Some buyers are also considering higher deductions above 23% moisture.