EU rapeseed area slightly up from 2016: report

In Germany, UFOP reports that an estimated area of 6.6 million hectares in the EU is planted with winter rapeseed for the 2017 harvest. This translates to a more than 100,000 ha rise from the previous year. The trends are very different in the different member states. According to information published by Agrarmarkt Informations-Gesellschaft (mbH), the rapeseed hectarage in Germany and Denmark is not expected to change to any significant degree from the previous year. By contrast, in France and, first and foremost, the UK, there are signs of considerable reduction. However, this decline in area will be more than offset by the substantial surge in Romania and Poland. The rapeseed area in Romania has been on a steady rise for several years and will exceed the five-year mean by more than one third in 2017. In contrast, Polish rapeseed production benefits from the fact that there have been fewer losses due to winter kill this year than a year earlier, when the area affected was higher than average.

Due to the consistently mild winter, crops have hardly been damaged anywhere in Europe. However, in some regions conditions were too dry at the time of sowing, leading to patchy crops and forcing farmers to plough up the land in some cases. But soil moisture content is borderline at the moment too, despite recent rainfall in some regions of Europe, and more rain is urgently needed because the stem elongation phase with the transition to flowering is setting in. UFOP pointed out that in the two to three weeks to come, rapeseed water requirements to ensure a good yield will be at their highest.

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