The German Raiffeisenverband estimates the German wheat harvest in 2018 at 24.29 million tons. This is clear from the association's forecast published today. In the first forecast, which was published on March 15, the DRV still expected a wheat harvest of 24.21 million tons.
In contrast, the German rapeseed crop could increase by 8.3% on the previous year to 4.62 million tons (March forecast: 4.67 million tons).
Germany is the second largest producer of wheat after France and the largest producer of rapeseed in the EU.
The cold start in spring has led to a delay of plant development of 2-3 weeks. Warm weather in the coming days could reduce the gap.
The sowing of summer crops is completed in much of the country and larger than normal, after the bad autumn weather has prevented the Wintergetreideaussaat in many places.
An enormous expansion of the sowing of summer wheat by 212.1 percent will help to compensate for the 35.1 percent reduced winter wheat sowing, the association said.
It is expected that the rape harvest will recover strongly from the very small harvest of last year.However, this year's harvest will still be below the five-year average of about 5.2 million tonnes.
German farmers are also building more spring barley this year. It is used for malt and beer production. The summer barley harvest is expected to grow by 12.4 percent year on year to 2.06 million tonnes.
Winter barley, which is mainly used for animal nutrition, will increase by 0.8 per cent to 9.09 million tonnes compared to the previous year.
The corn harvest will decline 6.1 percent to 4.27 million tons, the association said.
