Scottish cereal harvest in 2018 affected by weather
Staff Writer |
Cereal production and the area of cereals grown have decreased in Scotland in 2018.
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Around 420,000 hectares of cereals have been grown this year, three percent lower than 2017. This drop in area, combined with a nine percent decrease in yield, led to a 12 per drop in production, to 2.5 million tonnes.
This was due to the unfavourable weather conditions experienced in winter 2017, as well as spring and early summer of 2018. It has been particularly bad for barley and wheat crops, which resulted in a number of farmers choosing to whole-crop due to the low yield and quality.
Figures released today by Scotland’s Chief Statistician showed that spring barley, Scotland’s main cereal crop, experienced a fall in yield of six percent and production fell by three percent. Although the area of spring barley increased by three percent, yields and production were down due to the bad weather during the last year.
Winter barley was also affected by the poor weather, with area dropping by a fifth. This, along with a four percent drop in yield resulted in production decreasing by a 24 percent. This was the lowest production tonnage since 1993 and the lowest area since records started in 1982.
Wheat production has decreased, due to area grown decreasing by nine percent and the yield decreasing by 16 percent. Oats and oilseed rape also seen reductions in area, yield and production over the last year.
Final estimates of the Scottish Cereal and Oilseed Rape Harvest are based on final yield results from the 2018 Cereal Production Survey. These are combined with final crop areas from the 2018 June census to produce production totals.
Final estimates were broadly similar to the first estimates published in October 2018.
Differences in the first and final estimates are due to the amount of information available when calculating first estimates. ■
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