After a blazing hot summer, a reduction in yields and continued uncertainty surrounding Brexit, CPM finds out what the effects may be on the British seed industry and whether supply will be affected.
Imported seed will be delivered before the 29 March Brexit date to ensure no border restrictions.
By Lucy de la Pasture and Rob Jones
This season’s exceptional weather has caused havoc for farmers throughout the UK and Europe. According to the Met Office the summer was the equal warmest on record, with daytime temperatures during June and July well above average in all areas of the UK.
Scorching dry conditions in England were interrupted by some much needed rain in late July, the first rain that some parts had seen for 50 days. Scotland fared better, with regular light rain throughout the summer maintaining 87% of its normal rainfall. But temperatures remained considerably above average throughout, with evaporation levels considerably higher than normal.
And it was the rainfall in Scotland that kept seed crops in good shape, says Graeme Currie, high grade seed technical manager at Agrico.
The overall quality of this Scottish Markies seed is looking good, in spite of the challenging season.
“From a Scottish perspective, yields and quality are very good because we’ve generally had enough rain to keep plants going. That’s in total contrast to England, where yields and quality are down for seed crops, in some cases by 50%.”
He forecasts this will have consequences for 2019. “Despite around 75% of seed growers being in Scotland, it’s still going to affect business this year due to the difficult growing conditions in England. There’s very good demand for seed potatoes and prices are up because of it. We don’t envisage having any seed left over at the end of the season.”
The 2018 planted potato area was back 4.4% at 117,300ha from 122,800ha in 2017, and was the lowest for some time. Rob Burns, head of crops export market development at AHDB, believes the challenging summer conditions could see strong demand for seed for both export and the home trade.
“The bulk of UK seed is grown in Scotland, which was relatively unaffected by the weather conditions we had this year. We had a slightly later start in terms of planting and a good growing season, so seed crops in Scotland are pretty good and the export quality is there,” he comments.
“The main concern from a disease perspective is a little bit of common scab because of the dry weather, but apart from that there are no major issues. In terms of supply for export and for home supply quality’s looking pretty good.”
“In the UK we produce 0.5M tonnes of seed every year and 400,000t of that goes to domestic supply, which more or less meets our needs, and the rest goes for export. I think demand might actually be up for seed in 2018/19 because people who normally use farm-saved seed in England have suffered poor yields and crop failures due to the weather,” says Rob.
“If they’re looking to grow ware next year, they will likely need to purchase certified seed if they’re to make a proper go of it. But availability of seed will be tight as the English certified seed area saw substantially lower yields than average.”
With producers across northern Europe also suffering the extreme weather, Rob says it’s unlikely to affect the UK market. “Both the Netherlands and France had problems, but it has been very regional. It’s the same kind of issues we had with floods and drought so seed tonnage may be down a bit as a result. However, in the UK we’re not heavily reliant on European seed imports anyway and only tend to import some processing varieties which aren’t available in the UK.”
As Brexit looms, leaving a large question mark over most of the industry, Rob warns producers to be aware of the implications as things currently stand.
“We export around 20,000t of seed potatoes to the EU, and the other 80,000t go out to other countries. The problem is the import deals we have with non-EU countries are mostly done through the EU, so we’re not entirely sure of the status of our plant health agreements with those countries.”
Currently, the EU doesn’t allow any seed imports from any countries outside of the EU. “It depends if we have a deal or no-deal situation,” says Rob. “If we have a deal then it may be that we still have seed exports going to Europe, but if there’s no-deal there will be a default position whereby EU seed exports are not allowed at all. At 20,000t it’s not our biggest market, but it’s still a lot of tonnage to find a home for.”
The biggest market for export is Egypt, who take 70% of UK seed. “Our trade deal with them is currently through the EU, covering 300 different commodities. My feeling is that most of the countries that import seed from us will want to keep on going and it will be business as usual. We’ll find something to work around to make that happen. People want to keep that going because they are reliant on these supply chains for their businesses.”
Graeme reassures buyers of continental seed that measures are in place to ensure ware growers next season will not be impacted by a no-deal situation.
“Looking ahead to next season, imported seed from Holland and France will be delivered before the 29 March Brexit date to ensure no border restrictions complicate supply arrangements. This way we can avoid uncertainty around border controls and phytosanitary arrangements,” he adds.
Looking to the future, post-Brexit both buyers and sellers will want established supply chains to carry on, with as little change to the current regulatory arrangements as possible. Some rebalancing of supply and demand is likely in the years ahead as new arrangements take shape, but prospects for the seed industry are good as demand has not materially changed either for home trade or export.
Scottish seed grower gives thumbs up for quality
Patrick Sleigh has been growing seed potatoes for over 40 years on his farm in Inverurie and has never seen a season like 2018. “Like everyone, our summer was very dry. We had the lowest rainfall in years, and our cereal yields were down 1.24-2.47t/ha. But thanks to good rotations our potato crop has done okay. It won’t be a record-breaking year by any means and there’s no question that the yield is down but it’s not a disaster,” he comments.
Patrick grows seed potatoes with cereals and oilseed rape as part of an 8–10 year rotation, producing 400-600t of seed for Agrico of processing varieties, Markies and Arsenal.
“Because my potatoes are all main crop varieties they had longer in the ground and the land retained its moisture. We won’t have the same ware fraction to sell, because they didn’t bulk up as I wanted them to and I’d like to have seen them bigger, but the quality looks alright and I’m quite happy with them.”
But this wasn’t the case for all producers, he adds. “We had some localised showers here and good soil which has helped, but Northern Europe and parts of the UK have really suffered with the drought and will see very poor yields in places. I’ve heard yields of less than 25t/ha in places where people can’t irrigate. Supply will be tight this year and there’s no doubt that prices will be higher, but you can still expect good quality seed from me.”
2018’s weather contributed to a good growing season as far as pest and disease pressures were concerned. “Blight continues to be a worry due to the nature of its rapidly changing fungi, but luckily this year the blight wasn’t an issue because it was so dry. Aphid numbers were low and we didn’t treat cereal crops with aphicides – I’ve never seen so many ladybirds and the hot weather has been a wonderful thing for wildlife here.
“The crop looked stressed in the heightened dry spell, but a small amount of rain overnight kept them moist. Although a bit on the dry side, we had good conditions for harvest. We weren’t working in mud or poor conditions, so potatoes were coming up clean and dry which will help with storage.”
Exporting around 200-300t of product each year to Egypt, the UK’s biggest foreign market for seed potatoes, and keeping the rest for the home market, Patrick says producing seed with such stringent controls is becoming more and more challenging.
“I think Brexit will sort itself out but my main concern for the future is the green lobby. Looking back, losing many important actives like sulphuric acid has made production difficult. If we lose the use of diquat it will be very difficult to get potatoes to stop growing at the right time for seed,” he comments.
Rain saved the day in Roxburghshire
Peter Shiells produces seed potatoes on 140ha, growing Markies, Arsenal, Marfona and Performer on contract for Agrico, along with around 10 other varieties. He says he’s managed to produce a good quality crop during a challenging year.
“We were a week late starting to plant and we physically couldn’t have planted any earlier than we did, it was just too wet. We didn’t have quite the horrendous conditions experienced in the South so when the ground dried out a bit planting conditions were excellent.”
But then the dry weather hit. “The earlier planted crop went into soil with a bit of moisture has done fine and numbers were good. But the later planted crop went into a drier seedbed and never really got any moisture, so it suffered quite heavily with low tuber numbers and therefore lower yields.
“I wouldn’t say quality has been affected,” he reassures. “Overall, it’s actually better than normal, and we don’t have the common scab issues that you’d associate with drought. We had bits of common scab but nothing drastic, and no powdery scab. June and the first half of July were exceptionally dry so we had a long spell with very little water.”
Other growers in Scotland had similar experiences with variable yields. Common scab was reported to be worse in some places, but he believes his seed is relatively clean because his heavier soil retained moisture for longer.
“I would think this year’s seed supply is going to be short, mainly because of what’s happened in the South (of UK). Overall from what I’m hearing and seeing, yields averaged out in Scotland,” he says.
“Yields in some parts are down because crops were later to mature and during the hot, dry spell they spent about three weeks doing very little. They didn’t really start to grow again until we got that bit of moisture. The rain that finally arrived in late July-early Aug was the life saver. Had we not had that it would’ve been a different story.”
But harvest wasn’t without its challenges, relates Peter. “I found the crop was hanging on to the shaws a lot more than normal, making harvesting quite difficult. I think it’s because the growing season was much shorter, with the bulk of the growth at the tail-end of the season meaning plants were still thinking about growing rather than dying off. We also had issues with mother tubers not rotting away in some varieties.”
“The talk within the trade is that prices are going up, but how much of that will come back to the grower, we don’t know yet.”
Diquat non-renewal announced
The European Commission (EC) has decided to implement its proposal not to renew diquat’s approval in the EU. This decision applies to all products containing diquat and was based on concerns related to the precautionary principle of exposure of bystanders and residents, as well as birds.
The EC has proposed that diquat is withdrawn from the market by 4 May 2019, with a use-up period for growers up to 4 Feb 2020. But the CRD is yet to set out specific sell-out and use-up periods for UK growers.
