Scottish cereal growers are entering a critical period with a vast improvement needed in the weather to prevent the 2012 harvest turning into a disaster.
So far, with crops ripening about two weeks later than normal only winter barley has been cut and if the samples of this crop are typical, then the big issue for the whole cereal harvest will be quality.
Andrew Moir, chairman of the NFU Scotland cereals committee, had combined his winter barley last week.
He said: “It was coming off at 17 to 19 per cent moisture, the yield was about average and could have been very good in a better growing season but the grain was very light and I expect to take a hit on bushel weights.
“The reality is that when we get into spring barleys I am sure we will face the same problem of bushel weights. We have just not had sufficient sun.”
Surveying his wheat crop, he did not expect to be into it this month. “It is not maturing. It is dying.”
He had desiccated his oilseed rape crop three weeks ago but with the desiccant working slowly in the wet weather, he reckoned it would take another two or three days before it was ready to combine.
His counterpart in the English NFU, Andrew Watts, said he was about halfway through his grain harvest on his Hertfordshire farm, with all his oilseed rape, winter barley and oat crops harvested and about 20 per cent of his winter wheat.
He described the English harvest as a curate’s egg with both good and bad parts. Definitely in the latter category was the all-important bushel weight.
“The real talking point here is bushel weight. With our wheats back ten points from last year, we are already talking to our millers.
“Most pragmatic people in the trade are taking the view that this is what the crop is going to be and there may have to be some leeway in standards.
But Watts was reluctant to discuss what this might translate into in financial terms other than saying the usual penalty was a £1 per point below the standard.
“The reality is that no part of the world has had a good growing season. It is not that the UK has had a bad season and Europe has been good. It has been difficult for everyone.”
As he spoke, the November 2012 LIFFE futures for wheat hit the £200 per tonne mark, the highest price reached for that contract period, although the June 2012 figure went above that when the extent of the drought problems in the US were revealed.
Charlotte Garbutt, a market analyst with the Home Grown Cereals Authority, said the latest rise in the market was due to a shortfall in Russia: “The situation in the US has stabilised. It is Russia that is making the market nervous.
Their harvest is much poorer than expected and there is speculation that they will put a ban on exports.”