The 2023 harvest is now underway across all the main northern hemisphere cropping regions, with mixed weather and the recent events in Ukraine not helping the markets to settle into a readable pattern.
Crop conditions
The settled weather conditions in mid-July helped the majority of Scottish winter barley growers harvest their crops with the samples from these farms being variable.
Most barley has weighed in at acceptable levels of specific weight, mainly around 63-65kg/hl, but some of the samples have been poor in quality. These have generally come from lighter soils, which would have suffered with the very dry conditions in June.
Farmers have been reporting crop yields of around average levels, in the region of 8-9/ha, which is seen as acceptable but not overly welcome given the high cost of fertiliser and agronomy inputs that have made growing this year's crops very expensive.
The winter wheat is maturing quickly, with some crops looking like they will be harvested as soon as the current broken weather improves. As mentioned in previous updates, these crops are showing real potential. However, recent heavy rain in parts of the country has seen reports of crops going twisted and flat to the ground. There have been several reports of grains showing signs of sprouting, which is a worry at this early stage of the harvest. Time will tell, but most farmers are optimistic about what their wheat will produce.
The greatest concern is for spring barley crops. Much like the wheat crops, some early maturing crops will be ready to harvest as soon as the weather and ground conditions improve.
In June we mentioned that many later sown crops have struggled to develop and are quite low in density. This will affect the yield potential, but many of these thinner crops are showing some secondary tillering, which can lead to complications at harvest and increase the number of screenings in the samples. Perhaps these comments are rather pessimistic and hopefully, the barley samples and yields will be better than this.
Markets
Except for very small parcels of wheat, the old crop market is now all but complete. New crop markets took an upward movement in mid-July following concerns of disruption to Ukrainian grain movements by Russian forces, but this has proved to be short-lived.
The Nov 23 wheat futures were trading around £195 in early July then this issue in Ukraine pushed the futures to a top trade around £220 but this has gradually receded back to the same level at £195. During this volatile period, new crop feed barley managed to reach highs over £160 + ex-farm but has since fallen back to currently trade around £145 ex.
Wheat during the same period rose to see September wheat prices up to £220 ex-farm and, similarly to barley, has since decreased back to around £195 ex. There is still ongoing uncertainty in Ukraine and there are concerns that the high temperatures experience through much of Europe recently will contribute to smaller cereal yields so there are still possibilities that the grain markets could respond upwards once again. Certainly, there is already farmer resistance to actively selling any more than necessary into the markets at these prices.
The next few weeks will be critical in assessing crop yields, quality, and ease of harvest for both barley and wheat. Keep the fingers crossed for at least getting the weather on our side to see harvest safely in.