Heavy final wheat harvest is coming to an end

When it rained heavily in the first week of August, many wheat crops in the center and north of the Netherlands were ready for harvest. After storm Poly on July 6, quite a lot of wheat was destroyed. A combination of driving rain, wind and excessive precipitation resulted in many more encampments in early August plots. Shot formation occurred there first. The growing season plays a role in alloyed wheat. "Because we had a cold spring, mineralization started late. Especially where liquid manure has been spread," explains an arable farming consultant from the Northern Netherlands. "When the nutrients were released with the heavy rain, the wheat started to grow rapidly. This resulted in heavy crops with a lot of straw."

Mow in advance
Roughly from Thursday, August 10, the grain was dry enough in most places so that threshing could resume. It quickly became clear that the plots with strong alloy and germinated wheat were extremely difficult to harvest. To achieve this, in difficult cases we have fallen back on separate mowing before threshing. For example with a grass seed mower or swath mower. This obviously results in additional losses, but growers usually don't have much choice.

To date, the flail mower or disc harrow has hardly been used to work under fields. This only concerns very small areas. The grain collectors are not entirely dissatisfied with the quality of the wheat, given the season. In spring barley, alloying is not such a problem. There, especially in the north and northeast, plots are mainly subject to overgrowth. After it started raining, the plants started to sprout again, making the plots very bisexual. "Spring barley and wheat are being harvested this week. Most of the winter wheat is already gone in Friesland and Groningen," says Arjen Bijlsma, sales manager of supplier Hoogland.

Quality better than expected
There were major problems in the northeast of Groningen, where a lot of wheat is traditionally grown. Buseman Granen in Scheemda has now received all the wheat. "Partially with shot formation, but overall the quality is not disappointing," says owner Focko Buseman. "We expected the grain content to be considerably less after all the rain, but the protein percentages remain intact. By treating the wheat with a so-called punter, which we normally use for processing oats, we can clean up a batch so that it can be sold as animal feed."

Due to the heavy rainfall, the hectoliter weight has decreased. “The industry standard is 72 or higher, but our average this year is 68 to 69,” says Buseman. "This means that customers are now rejecting batches, but I think that in the longer term a lower weight should be accepted. Everyone is affected by it this year and not just in the Netherlands. Fortunately, we can improve quality with an operation, although this does increase costs.”

Anyone who visits growers and advisors will learn that the hectoliter weights of wheat have a very wide spread this season. From 66 or 67, but also well above 70 to 77. According to Delphy advisor Frederick Roseboom, who works in North and Northeast Groningen, this is partly because the weights for the rain were very high. "There are growers who have chosen to thresh wheat before the rain and then dry it. There we see extreme weights of 80 or more. You lose some kilos through the drying process, but it remains high. We come to the other end this year also plots with a hectoliter of 60 in extreme cases."

Wheat in biodigester
Farmers across the border in Germany are also facing the same problems. Depending on the region, a quarter to almost half of the wheat still had to be harvested and there are also problems with quality. As a result, the yield is up to 30% lower. Plots with too much shot formation disappear into the biodigester. A big downer for growers. The German Raiffeissenverband (DRV) expects that the total harvest of grains in Germany could be less than 40 million tons, a decrease of at least 7% compared to 2022.

After the wheat comes the straw, which is not available everywhere in the country. In addition, there was still a lot of straw from before the rainy period, which has now been shaken and turned several times to dry it. Nice summer weather is expected this week, which will allow the straw harvest to proceed quickly. The weather will then become more unstable, resulting in light precipitation.

In the August MARS bulletin, the JRC researchers speak of a significant impact on grain quality, and wheat in particular. The image above shows which countries and regions are experiencing problems. This mainly causes quality problems in milling wheat and malting barley, although feed wheat can also have problems due to the formation of mold and mycotoxin.

Consequences for seed
The fact that baking and milling wheat disappears into the feed channel is not disastrous. This volume is anyway limited in the Northern Netherlands. What could become a problem is the availability of propagation wheat for seed. Several advisors expressed their concerns about this. Roseboom: "We know that plots of propagation wheat have been rejected due to shot. In addition, the quality is simply lower due to the long wet period. In Oldambt there are arable farmers who still had wheat from the 2022 harvest in the silo and choose to use it to sow."

In the Northern Netherlands it is common to have your own wheat cleaned and disinfected. There are suppliers who recommend keeping good batches of wheat separate and using them as seed. An advantage is that in southern and central Netherlands a (large) part of the wheat was already in when it was wet. It is therefore difficult to say at this time to what extent the availability of grain seed will be compromised. Concerns are also being expressed in Germany about the availability of seed, especially for winter wheat.