Early Bird Survey 2014 November 17, 2014 12:00 am The HGCA’s Earlybird crop area survey (undertaken by The Andersons Centre) has been published. It shows a decline in wheat and OSR areas for next harvest, but a rise in barley and pulses. The survey provides a guide to plantings and intended plantings for the 2015 harvest. It has, in previous years, proved very accurate at an extremely early stage of the crop year. The survey measures crop areas planted by early November and planting intentions assuming ‘normal’ winter and spring weather conditions. It does not take account of the condition of drilled crops. The table below shows the estimated crop areas for 2015 when the Early Bird results are overlaid onto UK provisional 2014 crop area figures: EARLY BIRD SURVEY (EBS) ESTIMATES OF GB CROP AREAS FOR HARVEST 2015 ‘000 hectares DEFRA June Survey 2014 EBS Forecast 2014/15 Change All Wheat 1,929 1,832 -5% Winter Barley 427 476 +12% Spring Barley 653 713 +9% Oats 136 118 -13% Other Cereals 26 38 +48% OSR 674 649 -4% Other Oilseeds 17 15 -10% Pulses 138 171 +24% Arable Fallow 160 189 +18% Other Crops on Arable Land 397 404 +2% Total 4,557 4,606 Source: HGCA /The Andersons Centre Following excellent establishment conditions across most part of the UK it would be normal to see high plantings of the crops usually favoured – wheat and rape. However, with a large wheat area in 2014, more spring cropping to deal with agronomic pressures and policy changes in relation to Greening, the results are slightly different. The wheat area is forecast to decline by around 5% to 1.83 million hectares with more focus on spring cropping. Winter barley cropping is expected to rise by 12%, with spring cropping seeing a 9% increase; the largest area since 2002. As expected, with policy changes and poor OSR prices, the area of pulses is set to increase by around 24% to 171,000 hectares. The increase in fallow land was also expected given the new EFA (and crop diversification) requirements under Greening although this large increase may be lower if more spring cropping occurs as Greening rules are better understood.
