THERE ARE growing concerns for this year‘s wheat quality as rain continued to disrupt the European grain harvest.

The market

In the Ukraine recent wet weather has lowered the quality of the wheat crop.

EU countries and Russia are hoping that dryer and sunnier weather will improve quality prospects during the next weeks.

The possibility of higher feed wheat supplies would increase competition for export markets from cheaper Black Sea grain.

This continues to influence EU grain markets, reflected in a recent fall in feed wheat prices, while quality concern was reflected in higher milling wheat premiums.

EU progress

The main UK wheat harvest is not expected to begin until the Aug 10, while in Germany, harvest is likely to start in the southwest shortly.

The Italian soft wheat crop is drawing to an end and is expected to reach between 3.1-3.2 million tonnes – protein values are reportedly lower than last year.

In Spain, the wheat harvest should be completed in 1-2 weeks and produce 4.3M tonnes.

The French Agricultural Ministry forecasts the 2004/05 soft wheat crop some 21% up on last year at 35.32M tonnes.

Russia and Ukraine

In Russia, the grain harvest is around 10% complete and wheat yields so far are 15% higher at 3.2t/ha.

In Ukraine, barley was 12% harvested and wheat around 7%.

Early wheat yields were much improved at 2.9t/ha and total production was seen at 15.9m tonnes.

However, wet weather has affected much of the wheat crop in Ukraine with less than 40% expected to reach milling standards.