EU Grains Close

Posted by Nogger - a legend in his own mind at 16:49 | Categorized as

27/07/11 -- EU grains finished with Nov London wheat GBP1.00/tonne higher at GBP163.50/tonne and Nov Paris wheat EUR1.75/tonne firmer at EUR196.00/tonne.

Selling was light as uncertainty still surrounds the eventual size and quality of the EU crop.

We do however have a better idea on barley yields which appear to be generally better than expected, if still somewhat lower than last year.

The French winter barley crop is already in the barn, with final yields estimated at 6.0 MT/ha. a fall of 6% on last season, but higher than the 5.5 MT/ha predicted by the USDA and Coceral. Quality is also said to be satisfactory with protein contents reported between 9.5% and 11.5%.

At home I am hearing reports of six row barley at Catterick doing 4.18 MT/acre dry, on decentish land - that's around 10 MT/ha!

There are also widespread reports of OSR producing some incredible yields approaching 5 MT/ha. So far this week I've had two "phenomenals" and one "whopping" use to describe yields here and it's only Wednesday!

Ukraine are reporting much better than expected grain yields too, with barley averaging 2.47 MT/ha and wheat 3.27 MT/ha, that's around 21% higher than the current USDA forecasts for both.

The jury is still out on European wheat though, although most analysts are now lining up in the region of 135-136 MMT, very similar to last year and again considerably better than the USDA's latest offering of 131.5 MMT.