The European Union’s crop monitoring service announced on September 17 that it has trimmed its outlook for 2018 maize and sugar beet yields.
The MARS service said that persistent dryness, which has hurt crops and parched grasslands across northern Europe, also poses a risk for the rapeseed that has just been sown for next year’s harvest.
In its monthly update, MARS cut its forecast of the EU’s 2018 grain maize yield to 7.49 tonnes per hectare (t/ha) from 7.57 t/ha estimated last month.
As reported by the Reuters news agency, this would nonetheless be 2.6% above the average of the last five years, helped by strong yield prospects in southern Europe.
The anticipated sugar beet yield was also lowered slightly, to 73.3 t/ha from 73.8 t/ha last month, now 2.1% below the five-year average.
“Conditions of drought continued in central and eastern Germany and western Poland,” MARS said.
“In other parts of central and northern Europe, weather conditions have become more favourable since mid-August, but these improvements were generally too small or came too late to significantly improve the yield outlook for crops.”
The monitor had already cut its maize and sugar beet yield outlook last month.
According to Reuters, summer crops like maize and sunflower remained in good condition in southerly EU states. MARS noted that decent soil moisture following July rainfall helped mitigate the impact of a hot, dry August in southeast Europe.
Meanwhile, the estimated yield for the 2018 spring barley crop was lowered marginally, to 4.05 t/ha from 4.07 t/ha last month, leaving it 4.7% below the five-year average.
This led to the overall barley yield, including winter barley, being trimmed to 4.69 t/ha from 4.71 t/ha, now 4.3% under the five-year norm.
MARS left unchanged its estimate of this year’s soft wheat harvest at 5.70 t/ha, steady from last year but 4.5% below the five-year mean, reported Reuters.
