GB winter crops show some improvement from March: Grain market daily

• New crop (Nov-24) UK feed wheat futures gained £1.60/t yesterday to close at £204.60/t. This followed a rise in global grain futures prices due to ongoing weather concerns, centred on the US and Russia. The latest Russian strike on Odessa in Ukraine also focused the market on Black Sea supplies.
• Russian forecaster IKAR trimmed its projections for the 2024 wheat crop from 93.0 to 91.0 Mt. This would now be at slightly below the 2023 crop (91.6 Mt, Reuters).
• Paris rapeseed futures (Nov-24) rose €7.25/t yesterday to close at €473.00/t (approx. £404.50/t).
• Paris rapeseed and Winnipeg canola prices both followed Chicago soyabean prices higher. Chicago soyabean futures market rose due to concerns about the heavy rain on harvest progress and quality in southern Brazil.

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The condition scores for GB winter crops at the end of April are higher than at the end of March but still sharply lower than in recent years.

AHDB’s latest crop condition and development report, released today, includes information captured up to 30 April. It shows there is significant variation in terms of the stage of development but also condition scores for crops across GB. Sowing date, soil types and local rainfall levels are big influences of the variation.

In some regions, such as the East of England, which either received less rainfall or have better draining soils, spring fieldwork has been progressing well. Winter crop conditions here have also improved noticeably since last month.

But in others, April bought many ‘false starts’ to spring field work and has been a frustrating month. While winter crop conditions in these areas, such as the Midlands, Yorkshire and Wales, are better than in late March, they continue to struggle.

Fieldwork is generally still behind usual, both in terms of plant protection products and nutrition applications too. But most winter wheat, especially on the freer draining soils, has had its second application of nitrogen and has responded well. These plants now badly need sunshine and warmth to dry them out and get them growing well. Root structures also remain a concern, particularly for winter wheat and oilseed rape, and leave plants vulnerable to further challenging weather.

Although many growers have now been able to drill spring crops, there are still empty fields and there are only a few days left to plant spring barley in most of the UK. The late planting dates mean the average yield for spring barley is unlikely to break any records this year.

Some very late drilling of usually winter varieties, as well as spring wheat crops, took place in April. Planting winter wheat varieties this late is very high risk as without enough cold weather, crops won’t be able to progress beyond tillering this year. This could pose a further risk to the 2024 wheat area.

This report assesses the condition of crops in the ground at the end of April 2024. While the overall improvement in crop conditions is very welcome, the overall picture is still one of lower yield potential year-on-year. We'll look at what this could mean for crop production in 2024 in the coming weeks.

The final crop sizes will be important to the UK’s import requirements in 2024/25. A few minutes of your time can help show the full impact of the weather on the cropped areas for harvest 2024 by completing the Planting and Variety Survey, which in turn will give more insight into what our production might be this year.

There's more details on crop conditions in the full report here.

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