German winter wheat estimates have fallen this week, after the country’s statistics body cut the estimated area by 9.5 per cent to 2.870 million hectares. The statisticians said the cut was due to frost kill in February.

A survey undertaken in April by the statistics office revealed rapeseed sowings were also marginally affected, standing at 1.3 million hectares. Although the winter barley area fell by 8.0 per cent on last year’s figures, spring barley plantings are up almost 30 per cent in the country.

Although erratic and severe conditions wreaked havoc with winter crops in many parts of Europe, spring plantings have picked up some of the slack. Figures from Germany show spring grains have replaced many of the frost damaged winter crops; other analysts have said the same pattern is observable in other affected regions of Europe.

Tweet