This year, preliminary wheat is grown on 518,600 hectares.
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It is the first time that wheat is grown on over 500,000 hectares in Sweden.
The wheat area has increased by 55,700 hectares, 12 percent, compared to 2022 and consists of 50,300 hectares of spring wheat and 468,300 hectares of winter wheat.
Until the end of the 1960s, oats were the dominant cereal crop in Sweden and at the turn of the last century they were grown on over 800,000 hectares.
Then barley became the main cereal crop and by the early 1980s barley was grown on over 700,000 hectares. Wheat has been the largest cereal crop for several years in the 2000s, mainly in the last 10 years.
This year, barley is grown provisionally on 272,000 hectares and oats provisionally on 149,900 hectares. Both crops have decreased by 8,500 hectares compared to 2022.
This year, the area with pasture and green fodder is provisionally 1,107,700 hectares, which is a reduction of 2,300 hectares.
The area consists of 1,034,100 hectares of mowing and grazing land, 44,500 hectares of green fodder and 29,100 hectares of maize. It is the largest area with maize since the crop began to be reported separately in the statistics in 2008.
The maize area increases provisionally by 6,800 hectares compared to 2022. As of 2023, maize that was previously included in green fodder is included instead in the accounting variable maize.
Even if the 4,400 acres coming from green forage this year had not been included, it would still have been the largest corn acreage since 2008.
Preliminary, a total of 2,528,700 hectares of arable land is cultivated this year. Silage and green fodder, cereals and rapeseed occupy 89 percent of the arable land.
Otherwise, the arable land consists of 5 percent fallow, 2 percent legumes and 1 percent each of potatoes and sugar beet. The remaining 2 percent are other types of plants, for example garden crops and energy crops.
There are tentatively 456,700 hectares of pasture and hay meadow in 2023. ■