Cropped Areas April 18, 2013 12:00 am The area planted to winter cereals and oilseeds in the UK has fallen by 18% compared to the 2012 harvest year. This is the headline finding from the UK winter planting survey undertaken by the HGCA and Devolved Governments. The total planted area as at 1st December was 2.612 million hectares. As shown in the table below, the UK winter wheat area is 25% lower than the same time last year. Normally, if so little had been drilled by the end of November, the UK would see in excess of 200,000 hectares of winter wheat drilled in December and January. However, the planting conditions have been such that considerably less has probably been achieved. As for winter barley and oilseed rape, the drilling season had finished by that date and so any additional drilling will be of spring varieties. Winter oat plantings saw area planted fall by 26% although this can be drilled late, and many are considering spring oats as a rotational alternative. This data also is a snapshot of what had been planted by the 1st December. It does not take account of anything that had, or has subsequently been, written off by the appalling weather conditions. There will be two main situations. Firstly, a number of complete fields will have formally been written off by the farmer – with the plan to either fallow the field or possibly even to redrill the area. Secondly, are the fields that have some crop in them but have areas of bare land within. We suspect the latter will still continue to be recorded as a cropped area although the yields will clearly be dramatically affected in these situations. DECEMBER SURVEY OF UK PLANTED AREAS ‘000 Hectares Dec 2010 Dec 2011 Dec 2012 % Change 11-12 Winter Wheat 1,905 1,968 1,484 -25% Winter Barley 360 400 340 -15% Winter Oats 75 86 64 -26% Winter OSR 713 734 723 -1% Total 3,053 3,188 2,611 -18% Overall, the figures demonstrate a startling decline in UK arable farmed area. The last major decline was in 2001 after a winter of heavy rains (but not this heavy). The unseasonably wintry conditions have clearly hampered the spring drilling process, and every day that snow remains on the ground the less area is likely to be drilled. Spring planting expectations are changing daily now, with the area of fallow in the UK rising accordingly.
