The latest EU crop monitoring MARS bulletin
is pitching EU-28 H14 cereal yields as good and a positive outlook for
summer crops.
They are forecasting cereal yields at 5.31mt/ha
which is at the same level as H13 and compares favourably with the five year
average of 5.09mt/ha.
In Ukraine they state meteorological
conditions are optimal and cereal yields are expected to reach nearly the same
level as last year although there are a couple of significant points
that might dent this bullish position.
Leaving aside the war which
as we have seen lately is completely unpredictable so I won’t try, cash flow shortages
and political uncertainty meant growers applied less nitrogen fertiliser in
May.
While the crops might look superficially good from a satellite and even on the ground, I’m not sure this necessarily translates in
to high numbers of heavy grains.
Secondly, they state that crops benefited
from substantial rainfall during flowering; which is great except rainfall
means cloudy conditions, cloudy conditions means an extended flowering period,
extended flowering means the flower is open for longer and susceptible to
fungal organisms for longer, in particularly fusarium.
Wet, cool, cloudy weather at flowering
generally leads to higher levels of fusarium and for reasons already
mentioned I doubt many will be applying robust late fungicide programmes to
counteract this.
Meanwhile in Russia abundant precipitation
in June, crop model simulations, ample biomass and adequate soil moisture are
leading MARS to predict higher than average winter and spring cereal yields.
Drier conditions in Russia in July allowed the
harvest to get underway as confirmed by yours truly on his trips out and about.