Monday Market Briefing - 19th May 2025

Speaking to buyers at a trade event last week it’s apparent there is a broad consensus that wheat is about as cheap now as it’s likely to get. If nothing goes wrong with the world crop this year, latest WASDE numbers confirm there will be plenty of everything to go round in 2025-26 so traders spend their time looking for the weather story that might trigger a reaction. Despite new concerns about drought in China and late Russian frosts, so far there is nothing out there to trigger a market reaction. With another pleasant weather week ahead expect the long march sideways to continue.

At home the weather breaks properly next weekend, with a return to regular and wet low-pressure systems marching off the Atlantic thereafter, a soggy late May early June is forecast. That should keep the Agronomy team busy,  possibly the rain will arrive just in time to preserve wheat yields. For spring barley it’s a recipe for widespread secondary tillering with all the quality and storage complications that can accompany that. If you are considering placing your malting barley into central storage again this year but hesitating over yield potential, come and talk to us asap as the enlarged UK grain crop generally means space will run out earlier. The recent drought related rally in new crop malting barley prices will stop now there is rain forecast, consider selling 10% of your predicted crop if you haven’t already done so.

Spot buyers topping up late season requirements are keeping the feed grain markets alive, latest bids are slightly better than the lows of last week so keep in touch if you have some left to do.

Have a good week.