The wet and stormy weather that dominated the last week of
July has continued unabated into August. At the time of writing, most growers
have only just managed two consecutive harvesting days! The relatively
comfortable start to harvest in mid-july was quickly replaced with anxiety as
heavy rain and wind in early-August battered very ripe Winter Barley and
Oilseed Rape crops. Many growers by-passed winter barley in favour of OSR
(being far more susceptible to storm damage) which unfortunately led to a loss
of quality and yield in the winter barley crop.
Towards the middle of August most growers had made a start
into spring barleys and wheats. Spring barleys once again have produced very
respectable samples; if growers could consistently yield 3t/acre or higher with
spring barley, it makes you question the merits of persisting with winter
barley. Spring malting varieties all seem to be producing good quality and
retention but with nitrogens marginally higher than has been seen in recent
years.
Winter wheats so far have been fairly average; most first-wheats
have been good but as yet nothing startling. Second-wheats however seem to have
been much more mixed; it would seem that later drilled second-wheats that have
hung on longer through summer have produced far better yields and quality than
those drilled earlier. The greatest concern to have arisen through harvest is
surrounding milling wheat quality; the persistent wet weather has led to a much
greater variability in hagberg meaning there could be useful premiums over the
coming year for any samples that do meet full-milling spec.
Grain markets have been a tale of two halves with OSR and
feed barley remaining relatively unchanged for the last 4 weeks. Barley
continues to trade at £118-120/t spot with no carry further forward; OSR is
around £314 August and £325 for November, having seemingly never come under a
great deal of harvest pressure, telling you everything you need to know about
domestic stocks and farmer-sentiment.
Wheat markets have not been quite so mundane; having reached
a high of £153/t for November in July, (at the time of writing) wheat has
fallen to £138.50 for November. This is down to a couple of factors; firstly,
it being harvest, markets (around the world) are always put under pressure. More
importantly, a record-Russian wheat crop has been estimated at over 77 million
tonnes, and coupled to improving US crop hopes the market has come under
renewed pressure. Domestically, it is
difficult to the see the market sustaining these levels once we reach autumn.
By this point most growers have moved everything they need to for storage and
cash-flow purposes and are content to watch the market for a little while. With
the incredibly strong demand for feed wheat in the North of England, the
sellers are in a much stronger position.
The GrainCo seed-plant has now moved onto wheat processing
and already a few varieties are becoming scarce; Barrel, Skyfall, Relay and
Gator have all sold out, however there are good alternatives to be found in
Siskin, Lili, Dickens and the old stalwart, J B Diego. As predicted Cassia feed
barley has proved very popular again with only Tower and Glacier still
available.
There is very little to report on in the fertiliser market
at present with all attention on harvest and the up-coming drilling campaign.
UK AN is around £200-205/t for Autumn delivery, imported AN continues to
struggle and the incredibly poor exchange rate of the pound to the euro is not
helping this situation. As expected, Urea has lifted to £225-230/t for autumn
delivery and compounds remain fairly flat. There are decent offers for DAP at
£330/t, which should be of interest to anyone looking to apply DAP when
establishing OSR.
Call 0191 4287700 for all Grain Marketing, Seed and Fertiliser enquires.
