Spring seed sold out in a drive to drill more barley

Spring barley seed is virtually sold out, with the majority of crops already drilled on lighter land and the total area possibly up by as much as 50% this year.

Seedbed conditions are generally good on lighter land in the eastern side of the country, although some heavier soils in central England and further west are still too wet to drill.

The seed trade had brought in supplies from continental Europe in anticipation of a bigger crop, but this has now halted as the season progresses.

“We are sold out of spring barley. It has been a ‘get out of jail card’ on many farms,” says David Leaper, technical arable manager at advisers Openfield.

The yield potential for winter cereals is now largely capped, but if spring cereals get up and growing well, then there could be reasonably good yields, he says.

With winter wheat drillings down 25% due to wet weather last autumn, spring barley became the clear favourite to make up the shortfall.

Christine Lilly, technical manager at advisers Frontier, reports most of the spring barley in her area of Lincolnshire has been drilled and many growers have moved quickly on to sugar beet.

Most barley seed has gone in late and plant emergence is slow, but the crop could improve with a little rain and some warmer temperatures, she says.

Norfolk farmer Kit Papworth was drilled up last week, with his malting spring barley area around 15% higher this spring at around 200ha.

All the barley from his land in north-east Norfolk goes for malting, and he reports largely perfect seedbeds on his medium-light soils.

“All we need now is an inch of rain and some warmer weather,” he says.

Further west in Shropshire, Rob Timmis reports nearly 90% of his 140ha of spring barley is in the ground, on land that ranges widely from light sands to heavy clays.

“We have all but 20ha of heavy land drilled. This land is still wet underneath and every time we cultivate it we bring up more wet soils,” he says.

Guy Gagen, NFU chief arable adviser, says there is concern over spring barley drilled in February that has germinated but not emerged and also that recently planted crops need some rain and warmth.

The UK spring barley area is set to jump by as much as 50% to close to one million hectares from 2012’s 618,000ha, reflecting the sharp fall in winter cereal drilling.

This is likely to mean the highest spring barley area in the UK for 20 years and well above 2001’s peak of 783,000ha, and could result in an overall harvest to beat 2009’s 4.1m tonnes and well above last year’s 3.1m tonnes.