The European Union's crop monitoring service on Monday slightly raised its monthly yield estimates for grain maize and sugar beet in 2017 and said winter grain sowings ahead of the 2018 harvest were developing well in most countries apart from Spain.
The MARS service estimated grain maize yields in the EU at 6.92 tonnes per hectare (t/ha), up from 6.91 t/ha but 3.2 percent below last year's yield. The unit did not give precise reasons for the revisions but the adjustments come shortly after farmers in the EU's largest maize growing countries finished harvesting.
MARS also lifted its outlook for this year's EU sugar beet yield to 76.8 t/ha from 76.7 t/ha previously. This was 3 percent above last year's yield and 6.4 percent above the 5-year average. Beet gathering is still ongoing in the EU. The two main factors behind this year's high sugar beet yields were a strong trend of improving yields due to good management and innovation, and to favourable weather conditions in most large beet-producing countries, it said.
For soft wheat, the bloc's main cereal crop, MARS left its 2017 yield estimate unchanged at 5.94 t/ha, up 6.9 percent on last year and 1.8 percent above the five-year average.
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