Tillage acreage has held overall for the 2019 season, but there has been a shift to autumn planting.

With spring cereal crops now largely in the ground, seed suppliers and merchants are indicating that the total area under crops will either hold or be slightly below 2018 levels.

This is good news for the tillage sector following a couple of years of sharp decline.

Seed sales confirm that spring acreage is back, almost entirely due to farmers taking advantage of super sowing conditions last autumn.

This, allied to the poor performance of spring crops relative to winter crops in areas most affected by drought in 2018, has seen farmers shift to winter crops.

Bean seed sales are back, and acreage is likely to be down. Spring wheat acreage also maybe back. There is evidence that an increased volume of malting varieties of spring barley have been planted.

Maize sowing is well under way, and current indications are that the seed shortages experienced last year are a thing of the past. Acreage is likely to be similar to last year.

Grass seed sales have been strong, although that may indicate earlier rather than increased sowing.

Definitive information on crop acreages will only become available when Basic Payment Scheme applications have been collated in a month or more, but seed sales are generally a reasonable indication of cropping intentions.