The total area sown to cereals in Great Britain over the last season shows a slight increase according to the 2006 HGCA Planting Survey, the first comprehensive estimates of winter and spring cereal and oilseed plantings for the 2006 harvest.
"The results indicate that wheat and oats plantings are slightly up on last year, although barley and oilseed rape are both slightly down. Overall the total cereal area is estimated to have increased by 5,000 ha compared to last season," said Michael Archer, HGCA Economist.
The survey results show a total wheat area of 1.87Mha, an increase of 12,000ha on last year. Oats have also seen a rise in estimated plantings to 21,000ha. Areas sown to barley and rapeseed have decreased by 3% and less than 1% from last year's plantings, to 0.89Mha and 0.52Mha respectively. The area under set-aside rose by 2% to 0.55M ha.
This season's HGCA Planting Survey was carried out in conjunction with the HGCA Variety Survey for the first time. The Variety Survey provides a breakdown of the 2006 UK wheat and barley crops by individual varieties and gives estimates of the likely area by nabim wheat groups.
Based on the results of the survey, around 15% of the 2006 Great Britain wheat crop was planted to Group 1 varieties, compared to 12% last season. Group 2 varieties account for 27% of the surveyed area (21% last season) and Group 3 varieties make up 42% (55% last season). Group 4 wheat was planted on 14% of surveyed area, an increase from 11% last season with 2% of area being outside of the nabim classification system.
"The Planting Survey estimates Great Britain wheat area at 1.87Mha. If we assume that the sample surveyed is representative, we can use this estimate and the percentage breakdown by nabim group to calculate likely area for each of the group wheats," said Michael Archer. "Group 1 wheat area is estimated at 0.29Mha, Group 2 at 0.51Mha, Group 3 at 0.79Mha and Group 4 at 0.26Mha."
For barley, 72% of surveyed barley area was made up of malting varieties. This is the same percentage as last season. Eastern England produced the largest percentage of the total Great Britain malting barley area, at 24%. This was followed by South Scotland at 21% and North Scotland at 20%. Scottish malting barley area accounts for 41% of the total, compared to 28% last season.
"The Planting Survey Great Britain barley estimate is 0.89Mha. Since the Variety Survey shows that 72% of the sampled area was made up of malting barley varieties, we can estimate GB malting barley area at 0.64Mha. Feed barley varieties account for the remaining 0.25Mha, or 28%," said Michael Archer.
"Plantings of ukp export bread wheat are estimated at 41.4% (up from 40.1% in 2005) and the uks export soft wheat area made up 42.8% of the sample (41.6%). Given interest in both ukp and uks from overseas buyers, this could be good news for UK wheat export prospects," said Michael Archer.
The survey results are based on over 3,000 completed questionnaires from producers across Great Britain.
