Lithuania: Viking Malt posted an optimistic estimate of the Lithuanian 2004 malting barley crop of 75 thousand tonnes. Lithuania demand malting barley is of 100 thousand tonnes in 2004. The company revealed expected increase in acreage, total barley crop and share of malting barley. Today, when almost the entire crop has been taken in, the figures have to be adjusted, Viking Malt said. A recent company’s estimate points towards a slight down crease for malting barley from the levels we spoke of this spring.

In Lithuania harvest was about 2-3 weeks later than normal. A breakdown between varieties show: Barke 60%, Prestige 17%, Scarlett 15%, Jersey, Braemer and Sebastian 8%. More than 70 pre-samples from the Lithuanian crop have been analyzed.

27 October, 2004