UK bread wheat quality impresses, concern ongoing for German harvest
The UK crops and oilseeds experts added that yields are slightly lower than the UK five year average.
“With increasing areas harvested in the north and west, and on heavier land, where the dry spring had less effect on crops, the average UK wheat yields continue to improve with a current estimate of 7.5-7.7 t/ha, just under the UK 5 year average,” finds HGCA’s harvest estimates review.
Gary Sharkey, head of wheat procurement at Rank Hovis, told our sister site British Baker than the wheat crop is now predicted to be around 15mt, so “a reasonably sized crop in the UK.”
He said wheat prices are currently moving sideways, though a number of different dynamics, such as the lower corn yields expected in the US - resulting in higher corn prices and consumers switching to wheat products - could push up wheat prices going forwards.
Meanwhile traders expect that the final stages of the wheat crop in Germany will be only animal feed quality, report Reuters, citing continuing concern about rain damage to the final stages of the harvest in the EU’s second largest wheat producer.
Milling wheat futures in Paris eased today, coming under pressure due to developments on US markets, claims Reuters, with forecasts of rain in US winter wheat crop growing areas. However, physical wheat prices in Germany were higher.
Standard new crop bread-quality wheat for September and later delivery in Hamburg was offered for sale up €1 at €227 a tonne with buyers at around €225.
Analysts are predicting further reductions to the wheat harvest forecasts in Germany over the next few weeks, with about 5 to 10 per cent of Germany's wheat crop still to be harvested, in almost all of the remaining area in the north and north-east, which are Germany's main wheat export regions.
