German winter wheat sowings for 2015 crop up

Germany's winter wheat sown area for the 2015 harvest has been expanded by 2.8 percent to about 3.24 million hectares, the national statistics office said on Friday. Winter grains sowing of all types were expanded by 2.4 percent on the year to around 5.55 million hectares as farmers planted more wheat and barley and less rapeseed, it said.
Germany is the European Union's second-largest wheat producer. In most years it is the EU's largest producer of rapeseed, the bloc's most important oilseed for edible oil and biodiesel production.
Sowings of winter barley, used for animal feed, were expanded by 3.5 percent to 1.27 million hectares, the agency said.