With only a few late crops of spring barley, spring wheat and spring oats to go, the cereal harvest in Scotland is as good as complete. Weather patterns have certainly played a part in frustrating farms as they look to tidy up their later crops, but the vast majority of grain has been harvested in reasonable condition.
Crop conditions
With the winter barley harvest being completed in early August, we now have feedback on how those crops performed.
Yields in the south and north of Scotland were slightly down against average (7.2-7.8t/ha) while central areas produced more consistent yielding crops, pushing towards 8.5t/ha or higher. The quality is mixed, but most samples are making specifications for the market.
Unusually, most of the winter wheat was cut before spring barley, which is indicative of how good the autumn 2022 conditions were in bringing the wheat forward, while spring 2023 conditions held the progress of spring-sown crops back.
Wheat performance across the whole of the Scottish arable areas has been very consistent with healthy yields and good to healthy quality, with many crops reaching yields of more than 10t/ha and an average comfortably in excess of 9t/ha. Even with the unsettled weather, most farmers managed to cut their wheat at a moisture which meant reduced drying costs while retaining good grain quality.
The most testing part of the 2023 harvest has been the spring barley crop, with widespread quality issues in these crops and higher nitrogen levels in southern Scotland as well as concerning amounts of skinning seen in crops across the country giving malting buyers plenty of challenges.
Generally, yields have been lower than recent harvests and, overall, will probably drop below the average for the last five years. Many crops suffered from the dry spell in June, which led to higher-than-normal amounts of tillering. This presented farmers with problems at harvest, with uncertainty over whether to treat the crop with pre-harvest desiccant, and when would be the optimum time to harvest the crop.
Markets
Cheap Russian and Ukrainian wheat continue to dominate the global price, putting both wheat and barley under pressure. The last month has seen occasional rises in the price of wheat, but none have been sustained and, as we went October, Nov 23 wheat futures are still trading around £188, with short to medium-term outlook not showing any indication of improvement. This leaves ex-farm values stuck around £190 for the October/November movement.
Many domestic market wheat buyers are now reasonably covered for October wheat and farmers needing space may find it difficult to sell directly into the market and need to price it via storage which will eat into the ex-farm price even further. Feed barley prices have been quite a bit more variable over the past few weeks with some merchants offering ex-farm prices at £165 for immediate movement and some at £170 ex-farm for November whilst others seem to still be only able to offer at sub- £150. There is an expectation that feed barley prices will steady toward £170+ over the ensuing couple of months but, as ever, only time will tell.