Wheat Crop Tour of Poland & Germany
May 07, 2012
At the end of April 2012, Offre & Demande Agricole conducted crop tours of Poland and Germany that in sum found the following for the wheat crop in these regions:
- Poland: Field damage in the northeastern part of the country. A lack of soil moisture in April and warm temperatures since the beginning of May are worrisome.
- Germany: Winterkill was concentrated in few regions. Most parts of the country reflected good yield potential.
Following are more details of the tour's findings as well as supplemental photographs. A special thanks to Edouard Tallent for compiling the pictures and providing crop highlight comments.
Poland
Offre & Demande Agricole scouted Poland during the fourth week of April. Winterkill was notable in the regions of Wielkopolskie and Kujawsko-Pomorskie, located in the north/western part of Poland. Farmers were worried by the lack of rainfalls. Since then, Poland experienced warm conditions (23°C/73°F to 28°C/82°F) and moderate rainfalls. Soils still lack moisture. According to our latest estimate, 2012 wheat crop could reach only 7.2 million metric tons (MMT). That is low despite the expected increase in spring wheat acreages.
Crop tour route across Poland (dashed line).
Kuyavian-Pomeranian region: Weather condition during the winter resulted in low plant density and leaf losses.
West-Pomeranian region: Frost sometimes caused severe plant destruction.
West-Pomeranian region: Wheat is in good shape in the foreground, but winterkills visible in the background.
Kuyavian-Pomeranian region: A reseeded field. Due to the losses during the winter, spring wheat could represent up to 20% to 30% this year. That is unusual in Poland.
Germany
Offre & Demande Agricole scouted Germany during the third week of April. The group travelled to Germany with expectations of finding large winterkills due to the lack of snow cover during the cold snap in February. Winter weather conditions mainly translated in plant density reductions. Numbers of shoots were sometimes poor (350 shoots/m²). The Lower Saxony region (northern/eastern Germany), Northern Baden-Württemberg as well as Northern Bavaria, and Southern Hesse regions were most impacted.
Offre & Demande Agricole estimates 10% to 15% of the German acreage of winter wheat was impacted by adverse weather conditions. The general state/shape of wheat plants in Germany is and remains much better than it is in Poland and far-eastern France (the Lorraine region). Most German regions benefited from beneficial rainfalls since then. The German wheat crop could reach 22.5 MMT this year (about a 500,000-metric-ton reduction year-over-year).
Crop tour route across Germany (dashed line).
Lower Saxony: A wheat field with a very low number of shoots/m². Lower Saxony experienced severe damages during the winter.
Saxony-Anhalt region: Almost no winterkill; wheat plants generally in good shape.
Thuringia region: A plot with plants in good general state, quite representative of the wheat fields in central Germany.
