France: Fairly mild winter weather enabled French farmers to plant their spring barley between mid February and the first decade of March. That is a good start into the growing season, analysts said in a statement. Most estimates of the spring barley acreage are between 490 and 525,000 ha. Split up of varieties: 200,000 ha Scarlett, 150,000 ha Prestige, 70,000 ha Cellar, a newcomer with good success, others like Cork, Pasadena, Barke share the balance of 60 - 80,000 ha. Winter barley looks good after the harmless winter weather. Esterel is grown on 380 – 400,000 ha, the two-row winter barley Vanessa on 80,000 ha. So far the crop condition looks good, however, this weeks forecast rain is needed, subsoil moisture is low.

13 April, 2004