French soft wheat rating holds at four-year low as rain persists

The condition of France’s main wheat crop was unchanged last week at a four-year low, data from farm office FranceAgriMer showed on Friday, though wet weather this week could add stress to crops after a damp growing season.

Ratings of French soft wheat showed 62% of crops as being in good or excellent condition by June 17, unchanged from the previous week, the office said in a cereal report.

That was down from 83% a year earlier and remained the lowest score for the time of year since 2020, another year in which French wheat crops were affected by heavy rain, FranceAgriMer’s data showed.

Unsettled weather that has brought localised flooding this week could maintain soggy field conditions that have raised concern over potentially poor yields from this summer’s harvest of a crop area that had shrunk by more than 7% from last year.

Warm, sunny weather is then forecast to spread across France from Sunday, though rain is expected to return by the middle of next week.

Wet growing weather has also raised worries about crop disease, which can affect yields and wheat quality, which determines suitability for milling.

FranceAgriMer’s crop ratings track yield potential rather than possible grain quality.

For winter barley, the good/excellent rating edged down to 64% last week from 65% the previous week and 84% a year ago.

Winter barley is usually the first major cereal crop to be gathered at the start of summer. No winter barley had been harvested by Monday, FranceAgriMer’s data showed.

France’s agriculture ministry this month forecast that winter barley production will fall nearly 11% from last year because of a drop in planting and yields.

Tags: wheat, yields, crop, wet weather, soft wheat, France