Dry and sunny weather in western Europe this week could help accelerate the sowing of spring barley after heavy rain last month, analysts said. Favourable weather may help maintain the spring barley area at least at last year's level, although relatively low damage to winter crops should limit more sowing.
The spring crop represents about half of the European Union's barley production, which reached 60 million tonnes in 2014. It is more commonly used than winter barley to make malt for brewing beer. In France, a clear spell could allow farmers to put most of the crop in the ground during what is considered to be the optimal sowing period of mid-February to mid-March.
"Soils are generally saturated and it is difficult to get into the fields. The advice to farmers is to wait for fields to dry out," Jean-Paul Bordes of crop institute Arvalis said. Rainfall in France in February was 27 percent above the monthly norm, according to public weather service Meteo France. A high-pressure system should now prevail across western and central Europe until mid-March, Georg Mueller, Senior Meteorologist with Lanworth, said in a note on Thursday.
"This will lead to calm and mostly sunny weather across core production regions France, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom," he said. In Germany, spring barley sowing was just starting and healthy demand for the cereal could lead to a small rise in sowings. "While a trend towards spring barley is likely, Germany's winter has been so mild that there is currently hardly any need to replant winter grains or rapeseed damaged by frost," one German analyst said.
"Deep frosts are possible until well into March so the danger is not over yet, but warm weather is forecast this week and the probability of deep frosts is declining with each day." In Britain, planting was also underway and a slight increase area expected, Susan Twining of crop consultants ADAS said. "I think as soon as the soils dry out there will be some serious activity, weather permitting, and we would expect most of the English barley to be drilled by the end of March and the Scottish barley usually goes in by mid-April."
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