Land work has progressed well this month, helping to catch up on the backlog of work needing to be done due to the recent poor weather.

Some parts of the country have had some nice sunny weather, but here in South-east Scotland we have mostly had cold, cloudy weather coming in from the North Sea with the odd day of sunshine.

Spring barley planting has gone well and into good seed beds, and are now rowed up, looking good with recently applied fertiliser now being utilised by the winter sown plants as well.

Wheat prices have continued to fluctuate due to doubts about the renewal of Ukraine's Black Sea export deal next month. There appears to be issues with inspections of the ships entering, or exiting through Turkish waters, which is prompting fears of a collapse of the deal as Russia tries to get some sanctions lifted before it will agree a new deal.

There are also now issues with cheap Ukrainian grain banned from being imported into Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, which is affecting their own grain prices – but there have been some legal issues trying to enforce this and other solutions have been put in place by the EU.

Poland has allowed the transit of Ukraine grain, provided none of it remains in the country. This has seen wheat futures drop to their lowest level since the beginning of 2022 and May, 2023, old crop futures currently stand at £191.55, down from £195.25 two weeks ago and down from £302 in October, 2022. November, 2023, new crop stands at £205.20, down from £212.35 two weeks ago and from £279 last October.

This sees the November contract at a £13.65 premium to the May contract, so once again if cheap funding is available and space is not an issue, then it would be worth holding onto the crop until after harvest.

There are also the added problems with lower than expected use in both the animal feed and bioethanol sectors, which is adding to the already large UK tonnage which is putting pressure on prices.

Although there is a large surplus of domestic feed wheat, the pace of exports has been strong over the past few months, with 927,100 tonnes being shipped this season up to the end of February.

That is up more than three times at the same point last year, but even so large ending season stocks are still forecast with large availability and poor domestic demand.

Elsewhere, wheat tonnage forecasts are increasing and in Russia wheat exports are now expected to reach 44.5m tonnes with nearly 37m tonnes having been exported by the end of April.

Russia’s 2023-24 wheat production estimate has also been increased to 86.8m tonnes and 43m tonnes of this will be available for export next season.

Ukraine is looking at a lower grain harvest for 2023-24, with wheat production at 16.6m tonnes, down 19% year-on-year; barley down 17% at 4.8m tonnes; and maize down 11% to 21.7m tonnes.

Global wheat production is now estimated at 789m tonnes and global wheat consumption has now been revised up to 798.1m tonnes which leaves global stocks down by 2.2m tonnes to 265.1m tonnes.

EU stocks are up slightly to 12.16m tonnes and US stocks stand at 16.28m tonnes. Some 18% of the US winter wheat crop is in 'very poor' condition, like last year when the figure was 19% – Kansas and Oklahoma are suffering from drought leaving them in 60% and 50%, respectively, in either 'poor' or 'very poor' condition.

There has been some import demand for feed barley from Spain, which has had below average rainfall since the start of the year resulting in less barley harvested this past year, when they produced 6.8m tonnes, compared to their five-year average of 8.43m tonnes.

Feed barley prices have eased up on the back of other global markets. Prices have dropped given very little demand from compounders for animal feed as cattle get turned out to grass and the price carry from May to August is a lot less than wheat at around £5 per tonne, down from £10 per tonne in March.

Up to the end of February, the UK had exported 774,800 tonnes of feed barley, which is 38% up on last year but down 14% on the five-year average.

In February alone, we exported 97,500 tonnes of barley which is the highest volume since 2015-16. From the total exported so far, 99% has gone to the EU and over the past five years 88% has gone there, making the UK the largest source for EU imports of barley at a 52% share, followed by Ukraine at 44.6%.

Total EU barley imports up to April 10 hit 906,600 tonnes, of which 50% went to Spain from the UK, Ukraine and other sources. This has been good news for UK barley exports but looking forward, with falling prices, the UK could face increased global competition from large barley stocks in Russia and Australia.

Having said that, the UK is forecast to export a total of 1m tonnes this season and with the total moved so far, it would mean that the UK only has to move 56,000 tonnes per month for the rest of the season, so it may yet be possible that more than 1m tonnes of barley will be exported.

The Black Sea corridor agreement issues have also caused oilseed rape price volatility and ex-farm prices are now up to around £400 per tonne and will fluctuate still depending on supply and demand where supply appears to be increasing with more tonnage coming from Australia.

The La Nina weather event for the past three years has seen Australia benefit from excessive rain and the South American crops suffer from drought. This is about to change and forecasters are now predicting that Australia will produce less canola as the influential El Nina weather is 'in a motion of change'.

This could see its 2023-24 canola crop fall to 5.4m tonnes, compared to this year’s record crop of 8.3m tonnes. South American crops will benefit from the change in weather, with more rain increasing yields of soyabeans, but in Malaysia and Indonesia palm oil production will be reduced by lower rainfall.

This La Nina/El Nina weather pattern will be watched closely as it could impact on ex-farm rapeseed prices, and much will depend on how the weather affects Australia’s canola crop and soyabean crops as well.

There has been an increase in purchases of ammonium nitrate for spot movement as the better weather has increased the use of fertiliser onto growing crops.

Gas prices in the UK have remained at around £1 per therm and is likely to drop as the weather warms up and demand for energy falls, which should see fertiliser price do likewise.

In March, UK produced ammonium nitrate 34.5% for spot delivery averaged £465 per tonne, which is £166 per tonne down from February and £374 down from prices recorded in March, 2022. However, the latest price is still £181 higher than levels recorded in March, 2021, before the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

With natural gas making up 60-80% of fertiliser costs, fertiliser prices have followed gas prices down to £1 per therm, a price last seen in the summer of 2021.

A relatively mild winter across Europe helped ease gas prices and produced a build up of stocks and Europe’s gas storage as of April 16 was 57% full, or 21% higher than the previous five-year average of 36% full at this time of year.

Looking to the future, it is unlikely that gas prices will go back up to the highs seen last August, but with price volatility likely to remain in natural gas markets, it is unlikely that fertiliser prices will come back down to what they were before the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict anytime soon.