2018 to see millennium’s lowest grain harvest

The grain harvest for 2018 will be 2.8 million tonnes, according to an estimate by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke).

If this estimate proves correct, the harvest will be the lowest in this millennium so far, said an official press release.

The harvest will be one-third less than the highest grain harvest in the 21st century, which was in 2009. The rye harvest will probably drop by half and the wheat harvest by a third from last year.

This is the third consecutive poor harvest year in Finland. If the exceptionally dry and hot weather continues, even less grain than estimated could be harvested in autumn.

“If the estimate is correct, the grain harvest will be as low as in 1998 and 1999, when the harvest was first reduced by continuous rain and then by a dry and hot summer,” said Luke Senior Statistician Anneli Partala.

The current growing season did not have a promising start, as the heat wave and drought in early summer afflicted the growth of plants.

“In some places, the plants were able to revive from this ordeal during the subsequent cool and rainy period, but the new heat wave can cause lignification, which would further reduce the expected harvest,” said Luke Research Professor Pirjo Peltonen-Sainio.

The rye harvest will be cut by half from that of last year to the lowest level in the past five years. The rye harvest of some 50,000 tonnes will only cover around half of the consumption in Finland. The wheat harvest will be cut by one-third from that of last year to the lowest level in the past 15 years. The main reason for the estimated poor rye harvest is the fact that the cultivation area is reduced by the unfavourable weather during seeding last autumn. In the case of the other grains, the main reason is drought.

The barley harvest will probably be the poorest in 30 years, one-eighth lower than that in last year. Among all the crops, the oats harvest will be reduced the least, by a little over one-tenth. The oats harvest will be the lowest in eight years. This will be the second year over the course of the last three decades when the oats harvest remains below 900 million kilograms.

The rape harvest will be one-fourth lower than that in last year. Cultivation of rape has become more common in the past few years, and the harvest per hectare has been higher than that of turnip rape. This year will be an exception: the rape harvest will remain lower than usual and the sown area has decreased.