Grain prices hit a new low this week. For the past seven to eight weeks, they have remained relatively stable, with ups and downs generally within a range from €223 to €230/t for dry French wheat.

However, this week that December price hit €220.25/t. The lowest price it dropped to this year was €204.25/t on 6 March.

In general, it climbed until the end of May and dropped steadily since that time.

This in some ways is not a big surprise. It is harvest time in Europe and other areas and traditionally prices drop at harvest when the most grain comes to the market.

In recent years, we have seen peaks in price at harvest which has worked out well, but maybe Irish farmers need to be a bit braver at selling their grain and be willing to miss out on an opportunity to sell at a higher price that may or may not come.

In early June, prices of €215 to €218/t were available for green wheat at harvest from Irish co-ops. That was an opportunity to sell. Barley was at €190 to €200/t at that time.

Those offers are gone now, but maybe it shows us that it would have been worth selling even a small amount of grain at that time and at a price that would deliver a profit.

Wheat supplies look to be tight in Europe at present. Stratégie Grains revised its soft wheat forecast for the EU down 4.7% in its latest report to 116.5m tonnes. However, there looks to be a good supply from the Black Sea.

Maize looks like it will be in plentiful supply, so for feed grains, maize will be attractive. At home, barley continues to trade below maize, but maize prices fell in Europe and the US in the past week.

US production

On Monday of this week, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its Crop Production Report.

In that report, average corn (maize) yield was forecast to be record high at 183.1 bushels/ac, up 5.8 bushels from last year.

The area of corn is down in the US this year, but record high yields are predicted in states such as Illinois (see tillage pages 36-37 to hear from a US farmer based there), Indiana and Iowa, so these yields are making up for the decline in area. In the same report, all wheat production in the US was forecast up 9% on 2023.

The area expected to be harvested is up 4% from 2023 and yields per acre are expected to be up from 2023.

Oilseed rape

Oilseed rape prices dropped over the past week. Matif French oilseed rape for November dropped from €472.25/t to €464.50/t last week and dropped again this week, but recovered slightly to reach €456.50/t on Wednesday afternoon.