United Kingdom
January 15, 2020

As this new decade begins and we keep breaking records for rainfall and temperature extremes, this is a short overview on how recent climatic factors are effecting the Local, European and Global production of grass seed.

2018 saw record consumption for both Forage & Turf grasses across Europe, following the hot dry mid summer period of the same year. This increase was potentially a massive increase of 25%+ over the 5 yr average. This not only cleared all existing stocks (which were few) but took a huge chunk out of those volumes destined for 2019 sowing market. This has had a huge impact on the specialist grass seed production companies, as the process of C1 certified grass seed is a long and expensive procedure. Many companies like ourselves were looking to increase 2019 sowing (harvest 2020) to start us getting back to a healthier stock position. Unfortunately last autumn the whole of Northern Europe experienced one of the wettest October’s on record, in a normal season upto 20-25% of grass seed production is sown in the month of October. So not only have we not been able to increase production but the crops that were sown in August and September are looking poor at their early stage of life. Another issue could be that herbicides have not been applied at the optimum stage if at all, this could see problems when cleaning and certification comes around. A proportion of this production deficit may be able to be placed in New Zealand at a cost, although these crops will not be harvested/certified until April 2021 missing the European Spring market.

On a more positive note, we must remember that the new grass varieties that we have been breeding in recent times are very resilient and tough so the crops that have been sown and are struggling under present conditions can fully recover to give full genetic seed yield potential come 2020 harvest.

So the outlook is - quality grass seed stocks will remain tight for at least a couple of harvest seasons until the industry has a safe buffer of contingency stock.

Website: http://www.dsv-uk.co.uk

Published: January 15, 2020