French soft wheat may see some quality loss after rain -FranceAgriMer

Rain delays to the end of the soft wheat harvest in France may affect milling quality, though crop gathered before the wet spell was generally showing satisfactory readings, farm office FranceAgriMer said on Wednesday.

Frequent showers and cool temperatures since late July in northern France and a swathe of northern Europe have raised concern about quality loss. That has added to doubts about global milling wheat supply as war in Ukraine threatens Black Sea trade and drought hurts North American crops.

In France, the European Union’s biggest grain producing country, repeated showers that have hindered harvesting in the northwest will reduce test weights and will require monitoring of Hagberg falling numbers, FranceAgriMer said in a joint statement with crop institutes Arvalis and Terres Inovia.

Test weights and falling numbers are among common measures of milling quality, along with protein content. Wheat that does not meet milling standards can be sold for livestock feed.

Soft wheat harvested before the prolonged rainy spell was showing satisfactory falling numbers and protein content, with average protein estimated at around 11.5%, FranceAgriMer said.

But test weights in the earlier-harvested crop were also varied and some sorting was expected by grain handlers to improve readings, it added.

FranceAgriMer will publish detailed results on 2023 wheat quality in the coming weeks.

A drier, warmer spell forecast from the middle of this week is expected to help French farmers round off wheat harvesting.

Volume in the harvest is expected to be larger than last year. The farm ministry last week estimated the soft wheat crop at 35.6 million metric tons, up 5.6% from last year.

Tags: soft wheat, harvest, France, rain, crop, milling wheat, quality