July 14, 2015
More wheat cultivated in Scotland this year
A rise of 7,143 acres was seen in Scotland's wheat cultivations in 2015 as local growers demonstrated increasing preference for the crop over barley, based on figures provided by AHDB Cereals and Oilseeds.
The trend had been attributed to the three-crop rule under a new Common Agricultural Policy.
For Scottish rapeseed cultivations, those had rose 1% higher at 91,428 acres.
On a UK-wide scale, however, rapeseed dropped 7% from last year, to 1.54 million acres of cultivations while that of wheatslid 3% to 4.62 million acres. In the meantime, the combined acreage for cereals and oilseeds fell an estimated 2% from 2014, to around 9.19 million acres.
According to Anna Lockwood, an AHDB market analyst, lower cultivations for rapeseed this year reveals "evolving cropping patterns throughout Great Britain", and may likely occur due to "developing economic and agronomic trends".