HAMBURG: Germany is on course for a larger winter wheat crop in 2019 after drought caused massive harvest damage last year, the association of German farmers DBV said on Wednesday.
Germany will harvest about 24.1 million tonnes of winter wheat, up from the small crop of 19.6 million tonnes last year, the DBV said in its first harvest report of this year.
The winter rapeseed crop is expected to fall to 3.1 million tonnes from 3.7 million tonnes last year, due to a sharp reduction in sowed area after a difficult autumn for sowing conditions in Germany.
Germany is the European Union's second largest wheat producer after France and in many years the EU's largest producer of rapeseed, Europe's main oilseed for edible oil and biodiesel production.
The country's 2019 harvest of grains of all types will rise to around 47 million tonnes, up about 9 million tonnes versus 2018, the association said.
Although the grains crop is up on 2018's damaged harvest, it will still be about 1 million tonnes below average harvests between 2013 to 2017, said association president Joachim Rukwied.
The continued impact of the summer 2018 drought made sowings difficult in autumn 2018 as fields were still very dry, the association said.
German crops did benefit from widespread rain in May this year. However, a heatwave in much of the country in late June and early July may have stressed some grain crops, it said.
Winter barley harvesting has now started in regions which sowed early and is expected to gather speed in coming days, it said. The harvest of the crop, largely used for animal feed, is expected to rise to 9.8 million tonnes from about 7.3 million tonnes last year.
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