Sweden: The tall and narrow Sweden is divided into two parts when it comes to barley: The early south region where the barley normally is sown in April and the later mid region where sowing usually takes place the second half of April – the first half of May. This year the sowing in the whole Sweden was very early and concentrated to a shorter period of time than normal as more or less all of the barley was sown before mid of April. Until mid of May everything looked very fine. We had enough rain directly after sowing to enable for the plants to establish well before a warmer period came. May has brought a lot less rain than normal and therefore some forecasts of the coming crop have been reduced to an estimated harvest of about 400 000 tons (originally about 430 000 tons) which is slightly more that for previous years. Both quantity and quality of the Swedish 2004 crop are strongly dependent on the weather during June and July. If we get adequate amount of rainfall, the possibility of an excellent crop is still possible. Estimated time for harvest in Sweden is about 3 1/2 months from sowing – around end of July beginning of August.

28 July, 2004