United Kingdom
June 24, 2013
Due to a shortage of UK-produced certified spring seed, Lincolnshire-based seed merchant Cope Seeds has imported record levels of seed from abroad – and predicts more shortages to come.
Last year’s poor harvest and wet weather meant farmers were sowing in the spring rather than the winter, putting pressure on supplies of spring cereal seed for this year’s harvest. Cope Seeds had to import record quantities of spring wheat, barley and oat seeds to supply UK farmers.
The seed merchant is now planning to import even more seed in the next few months as it predicts lower than average yields – and therefore seed stock – for the 2013 harvest due to a combination of late drilling and poor crop establishment.
Trevor Cope, managing director at Cope Seeds, said: “Looking at the areas entered for seed multiplication and the predicted yields for this year’s harvest it is clear there will be serious pressure on the availability of C2 Certified Winter Wheat, Barley and Oat seed. Most autumn crops are two weeks behind their normal growth stage, which means farmers will be harvesting later than normal.
“I’ve been travelling up and down the country recently and it seems to me that the total certified cereal seed requirement in particular will be difficult to supply from the UK, so we’re already discussing potential requirements with our contacts in France, Germany, Denmark, Poland.
Trevor says that farmers who are looking to drill oilseed rape after wheat will be under particular strain.
“Lots of rape crops sown last Lots of rape crops sown last September have been looking extremely thin and many being were ripped up and re-sown. I think we will see a real downturn in the planting of oilseed rape while farmers consider growing more winter barley in order to get an earlier 2014 harvest to allow them to get oilseed rape back into the rotation.
“My advice to those who want to grow specific varieties is to contact your regular seed supplier and cover early. This will ensure growers receive the variety of choice at an agreed and advantageous early price.”
Cope Seeds sells a wide range of conventional and organic cereals and pulse seed as well as supplying oilseed rape and agricultural and amenity grass seed. It has strong links with European plant breeders and undertakes extensive research and development of new varieties in official and private trials.
Cope Seeds chooses the varieties it imports by evaluating European trial data and taking advice from European breeders about what is best suited to UK conditions. In Spring 2013 Cope Seeds imported varieties including Dafne, Tercie and Tybalt spring wheats, Atego, Rozmar and Flammingsgold spring oats, and Propino and Quench spring barley. It has exclusivity agreements for Dafne and Tercie spring wheat, Atego, Rozmar and Vok spring oats as well as Saul naked oats in the UK.
Dafne is a new a high-yielding, bread-making spring wheat which has topped HGCA UK official trials.
Cope Seeds is also working hard to build the export side of the business. It is working with UK Trade and Investment to build links with European merchants and seed breeders so that it can deliver seed throughout the continent.
Last year Cope exported a large quantity of spring seed to Germany and in 2011 it supplied customers in Holland due to problems with Dutch supply.
Varieties that have proved popular abroad include Concerto and Westminster spring barley, Atego spring oats and Tybalt, Granary, Ashby and Amaretto spring wheat.
Trevor said: “We’re a responsive team here at Cope Seeds, which means we can react quickly to fluctuations in supply and demand across the whole of Europe.
“I’ve been working in the seed industry for a long time and would like to think I am able to identify problems in seed production at the earliest possible stage. The most important thing to us is that we get seed delivered to farmers where and when they need it.”
Based near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, Cope Seeds Ltd is a sales and marketing company of agricultural seeds. The company is headed by Trevor Cope, who has 37 years’ experience in the sector. Cope Seeds processes a wide range of organic and conventional seed which are then marketed to wholesale, farming and retail customers throughout the UK.
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