Germany: Germany reduces winter barley and winter wheat area this year

Germany's winter wheat sown area for the 2020 harvest has been reduced by 7% on the year to about 2.84 million hectares, the national statistics office said on May 15 in a crop estimate.

Farmers had turned to other crops such as rapeseed, data from the agency said.

German winter rapeseed sowings for the 2020 crop have been expanded by 11.9% on the year to around 953,000 hectares. The rapeseed area for Germany's 2019 crop had been cut by dry weather in the planting season which prevented sowings.

Sowings of winter barley, used for animal feed, were cut by 2.2% to 1.32 million hectares, the statistics agency said.

Plantings of spring barley, used in malt and beer production, increased 3.1% to 367,000 hectares.

Plantings of rye and other minor winter grains were increased by 4.0% to 660,000 hectares.

The area for grain maize (corn) rose 10.8% to 460,000 hectares.