UK: Cereal Quality Survey confirms lower quality for both wheat and barley crops this year
Results from the Cereal Quality Survey confirm lower quality for both wheat and barley from the 2023 harvest, including specific weights. Unsurprisingly moisture contents are also higher due to the wet weather at harvest, along with lower Hagberg Falling Numbers (HFNs) for wheat, , AHDB reported on October 27.
The 2023 Cereal Quality Survey confirms reports from during the harvest of lower specific weights for UK’s barley crop. The year-on-year declines for spring varieties are much larger than those for winter varieties.
At 62.6kg/hl the 2023 GB average specific weight for all barley samples is likely the lowest in the history of the survey, which began in 1977. The change in methodology in 2022 means the results are not directly comparable but this still gives an indication of the challenge to industry.
Screening levels are also poorer year-on-year, though winter varieties fared much worse than spring varieties. On average, 82.0% of winter varieties were retained by a 2.5mm sieve, 7.7 percentage points (pp) below the three-year average of 89.7%. For spring varieties, 94.5% were retained, 0.7pp below the three-year average.
For winter barley, nitrogen content averaged 1.70%, comparable to last year and marginally higher than the three-year average of 1.68%. The nitrogen content in spring barley samples averaged 1.62%. This is higher than in 2022 (1.50%) and the three-year average of 1.56%.
Across all barley samples, the average moisture content is 16.0%. This is sharply up from last year’s low level of 14.3% and slightly above 2021 (15.9%).
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