Crop Update July 2022

With the UK experiencing a heatwave, we have seen the combine harvesters out harvesting the winter barley crops this week. In fact, the first intake of the 2022 barley took place on Wednesday, 13^th of July.

Our Commercial Director, Bob King, has been on a crop tour in the Cotswolds and visited local barley fields to check out this year’s crop. Here’s what he has to say:

Harvest has started in eastern and southern England, 7-10 days earlier than usual. The first samples of winter malting barley Maris Otter and Flagon were analyzed in our laboratory at Great Ryburgh in the east of England, we had low grain nitrogen and good grain size. With the good weather forecast for the next couple of weeks, we expect to have the winter crop harvested well before the end of the month. Despite the very dry April and early May spring malting barley crops in England look in better condition than would be expected after a difficult growing season; harvest should start in the earliest areas in the first few days of August – weather permitting. In Scotland the spring barley crop is still developing with merchants reporting quite a variation in crop potential in different areas due to a prolonged planting period and varying rainfall quantities.