PARIS: Cereal crops in France, the European Union’s biggest producer, remained mostly in good shape last week, farm office FranceAgriMer said on Friday, as traders monitored a wintry start to April for any damage to fields.

For soft wheat, 92% of crops were rated good or excellent in the week to March 28, stable compared with the previous week and the highest score for the period in at least five years, FranceAgriMer said in a weekly cereal crop report.

Winter barley and durum wheat, sown in autumn like soft wheat, also remained at a five-year high for crop ratings, with good/excellent scores of 88% and 87% respectively, it said. In a first rating for recently sown spring barley, the

office estimated 92% of crops were in good or excellent condition. French cereals have benefited from moderate weather since autumn, and showers earlier this week are expected to help crops after a dry end to winter.

Attention has turned to a cold spell from Friday forecast to bring widespread frosts until Monday. The weather outlook has raised concern about damage to farmland, as was seen a year ago when a cold snap also followed a mild start to spring, causing losses in vineyards and fruit orchards.

However, temperature forecasts and the development stage of plants suggested limited risks for cereals, crop institute Arvalis said. Grain markets are also monitoring upcoming spring planting to see if farmers’ plans would be altered by tensions in fertiliser supply and calls to raise production to compensate for war-hit exports from Ukraine. Sunflower seed could attract extra plantings as it uses less fertiliser than corn, mirroring an expected shift in the United States to soybeans from corn.

France’s sunflower seed area may reach 750,000-780,000 hectares this spring, compared with about 700,000 initially expected, Afsaneh Lellahi of oilseed crop institute Terres Inovia said.

However a big shift in planting trends was not expected as French farmers generally follow rotation patterns, while the EU’s decision to allow fallow land to be cultivated this year came late for growers to change plans, Claude Tabel, head of seed industry group UFS, said.