Monday Market briefing - 9th August

The UK experienced an unusually heavy summer storm this past weekend, with some areas receiving upwards of 50 mm over 48 hours.  Fortunately farmers got stuck in combining wheat last week, and so far harvest intake in the South has been very good milling quality, albeit high moisture. It remains to be seen what becomes of the balance of wheat still in the field, but later drilled wheat (early Nov 2020) which is still not fully ripe probably weathered the storm admirably. Combines should start rolling again on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, many parts of Europe have also been hit with heavy rain and France’s milling wheat export surplus has been cut in half. This will keep milling premiums supported throughout the season, and imported German wheat is likely to remain in UK milling grists. However, lower global wheat yields and disappointing Southern Hemisphere crops has led to lower availability of feed grains. Global supply is now heavily dependent on a bumper US corn crop (harvested in October) in order to avoid grain stocks falling to dangerously low levels.

On-farm segregation of pre-rain and post-rain samples remains high priority, so please contact your farm trader for our normal on-farm grain sampling service.

Have a good week.