UK Planting Ideas For 2009 Crop
Now that the 2008 crop is in the barn, I thought it might be an interesting idea to call plantings for the 2009 crop.
I don't think we get any official figures from the likes of DEFRA/HGCA/NFU until round Feb time as I recall. So at the moment it's all personal opinion.
The Scottish Agricultural College estimate that the variable cost of producing a tonne of wheat in 2009 has gone up to £90/tonne (from £54/tonne in 2008).
A fertiliser chum tells me that at current levels for AN alone it will cost £50 to produce a tonne of wheat in 2009, this is up from around £18-20 for the 2008 crop.
Frontier are saying that, as of last week, around 60% of the wheat crop was already in the ground, and that despite current prices they only see a wheat acreage reduction for next season's crop of 5 percent.
I asked a grain broking chum of mine how he sees winter plantings and he said: rape down 18%, wheat down 7-10%, barley unch and beans up 35%.
He also went on to say that he sees spring planting up around 20%, with lots of farmers, especially those on heavy land, adopting a wait-and-see attitude until then.
An insider at a major seed company told me a year ago that their wheat seed sales were up almost 50%, this year they are "back to normal." I only throw that in because if I'd told you a year ago we were in for a wheat crop 33% higher than 2007's you'd have said I was mad. But that's what we've got according to the NFU this week.
The evidence of my own eyes tells me that a lot of fields in Yorkshire remain unplanted so far. To me a reduced wheat acreage of only 5-10% seems like not nearly enough.
What do you lot think? Email me your ideas/comments on the UK's 2008/09 wheat plantings & I will blog the general consensus here next week. You're talking out of your hat Nogger!
I don't think we get any official figures from the likes of DEFRA/HGCA/NFU until round Feb time as I recall. So at the moment it's all personal opinion.
The Scottish Agricultural College estimate that the variable cost of producing a tonne of wheat in 2009 has gone up to £90/tonne (from £54/tonne in 2008).
A fertiliser chum tells me that at current levels for AN alone it will cost £50 to produce a tonne of wheat in 2009, this is up from around £18-20 for the 2008 crop.
Frontier are saying that, as of last week, around 60% of the wheat crop was already in the ground, and that despite current prices they only see a wheat acreage reduction for next season's crop of 5 percent.
I asked a grain broking chum of mine how he sees winter plantings and he said: rape down 18%, wheat down 7-10%, barley unch and beans up 35%.
He also went on to say that he sees spring planting up around 20%, with lots of farmers, especially those on heavy land, adopting a wait-and-see attitude until then.
An insider at a major seed company told me a year ago that their wheat seed sales were up almost 50%, this year they are "back to normal." I only throw that in because if I'd told you a year ago we were in for a wheat crop 33% higher than 2007's you'd have said I was mad. But that's what we've got according to the NFU this week.
The evidence of my own eyes tells me that a lot of fields in Yorkshire remain unplanted so far. To me a reduced wheat acreage of only 5-10% seems like not nearly enough.
What do you lot think? Email me your ideas/comments on the UK's 2008/09 wheat plantings & I will blog the general consensus here next week. You're talking out of your hat Nogger!