There was a 16,000ha reduction in cereals and a 5% decrease in overall crop area in 2018, provisional crop area figures from the Department of Agriculture show.

Winter crops

Winter crop area will be adjusted when the final area figures are released later this year. However, these areas are not expected to change significantly.

Overall, the winter crop area saw a reduction of over 19,000ha on 2017’s crop area, largely due to the difficult autumn planting season last year. In terms of area, winter barley saw the biggest reduction, approximately 8,500ha.

A proportion of this reduction may be attributed to growers’ decision to plant more spring barley, given the perceived outlook for the crop at that time.

Winter wheat saw an 11% reduction, close to 6,800ha. Proportionally, winter oats recorded the biggest reduction in area – 30%, or just under 4,300ha.

However, last year many growers decided to reduce the area of this crop due to the perceived oversupply in the market and recent profitability trends. The area planted under winter beans has also reduced by 20% to 740ha.

Finally, winter oilseed rape has increased by 9% to bring the area up to approximately 750ha.

Prospective prices for oilseed rape last August ranged from €360-370/t and the unfolding harvest difficulties may have enabled growers to plant more hectares to oilseed rape.

Spring crops

Interpretation on the provisional spring crop areas comes with a health warning, as these figures will most likely change after the final date for amendments (31 May).

As expected, spring barley area has jumped significantly, showing a 7% increase on 2017, to 122,000ha.

The provisional cumulative reduction in area of spring oats, wheat, beans and oilseed rape came to just over 10,000ha, but the revised figures will likely show this to be higher.

As expected, the area of beet and maize has increased significantly, up 9% and 40% respectively.

However, these figures appear to be conservative and an increase in declared area is also expected in the revised figures next month.

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