Wheat harvest southwest in the final sprint

Little by little, arable farmers are trying to get their wheat off the land. This works relatively well, especially in the southwest. After a rainy period, sometimes with heavy showers, harvesting work can be resumed. One after another reports on Twitter that the harvest is already over. In the center and north of the Netherlands, combining can finally start at the start of August.

Zeeland far ahead
Harvest progress at CZAV is making leaps again in week 31. All Zeeland areas are making good progress with the harvest. Tholen and St. Philipsland remain at the forefront. Just under 20% still needs to be achieved. In Zeeuws-Vlaanderen this is still 30%. The South Holland islands follow closely. There too, almost 70% has already been received in places.

After a long period of drought, the southwest was treated to good rain in July. Almost all municipalities received more than 100 millimeters of precipitation during the month, with peaks of up to 186 millimeters on Goeree-Overflakkee.

"The quality is just good"
According to Rien Fieman of CZAV, the quality of the wheat is simply good. "The moisture content may be a bit too high (15% to 16%) to deliver, but overall the wheat looks fine." Before the rainy period, the hectoliter weight was approximately 80. "After that period, this has not changed significantly. The hectoliter weight is now approximately 78 to 79. So not much different."

Fieman cannot yet say too much about the yields in the CZAV area. However, what is abundantly clear is that prices vary widely. "On average we will end up around the multi-year average, but there is a clear difference in price between dry soil and moisture-retaining soil."

Text continues below the chart.
The progress of the 2017 grain harvest.

Start harvest normally
For a while it seemed that we were dealing with a historically early grain harvest. One of those you only saw in 1976. However, the current picture is not much different than in other years. In 2016, the harvest also started around August 1. On August 2 last year, CZAV had received 15% of the total volume of grain.

In 2015, the harvest also started at the beginning of August. Apart from the situation in the south, where wheat was already started in mid-July and winter barley was started at the end of June, threshing of grains in the central and northern Netherlands has started normally this year.