Smaller German wheat and rapeseed crops forecast due to dry weather
Adds detail on expected harvest, comment, other crop forecasts from paragraph 4-10
HAMBURG, July 13 (Reuters) – Germany’s 2023 wheat harvest will fall 3.2% on the year to 21.79 million metric tons, the country’s association of farm cooperatives said on Thursday, repeating its earlier forecast of a smaller harvest this year after dry weather stressed grains.
This was down from its previous forecast in June of a German 2023 wheat crop of all types of 21.87 million metric tons as rain often came too late to help crops.
In its latest harvest estimate, the association forecast Germany’s 2023 winter rapeseed crop will fall 3.3% on the year to around 4.14 million metric tons, unchanged from the June estimate.
Germany is the European Union’s second largest wheat producer after France and in many years the EU’s largest producer of rapeseed, Europe’s main oilseed for edible oil and biodiesel production.
The association said it was “cautiously optimistic” about Germany’s harvest although grains and rapeseed had suffered from lack of rain in the spring and early summer.
Rain in recent weeks will prevent very serious harvest losses but came too late in some areas to reverse dryness damage, the association said.
Maize (corn) has benefited from the rain but a current heatwave means expectations of overall reduced grains and rapeseed crops must be maintained, it said.
Germany’s winter barley crop, mostly for animal feed, will be 1.1% lower on the year to 9.12 million metric tons, the association said. Winter barley harvesting is well underway and is finished in some areas but with barley quality sometimes suffering from dryness stress.
The spring barley crop, used for beer and malt production, will fall 17.0% on the year, largely because of reduced sowings, to 1.63 million metric tons.
The maize crop will fall 3.0% to 3.72 million metric tons, it estimated.
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