EU yields below five-year average as weather extremes hit tillage

EU yield forecasts sit below the five-year average for most crops as the 2026 harvest draws to a close, the European Commission has reported. Weather extremes continue to hamper field work on tillage farms across Europe, and the outlook for the new planting season remains sharply divided between a waterlogged north and a parched centre-west.

The Commission's yield forecasts have changed relatively little since the end of September. In some regions, forecasters have revised them further downwards, because persistent adverse soil moisture conditions reduced yields and delayed harvests.

Field work is well advanced across most of the continent, but the autumn and winter planting season has presented widely differing challenges for growers. In overall terms, forecast rainfall across most of Europe may improve soil moisture and support winter crop establishment. Drier conditions forecast in the Baltic states could help mitigate waterlogging there.

The picture beyond that average, however, is very mixed.

Where is dryness holding back crops?

Persistently low soil moisture across parts of western, central and south-eastern Europe is hampering rapeseed emergence and early development. The same dryness is raising concerns for winter cereal establishment.

The lack of rainfall and very dry soils in France, southern Belgium, Luxembourg and southern Germany have hampered rapeseed emergence, resulting in patchy crop establishment in several areas. Winter cereal sowing has also progressed more slowly in parts of France and the Benelux countries.

Recent rainfall improved sowing conditions and early establishment in southern Germany, but the Commission notes that further rainfall is needed to support crop establishment there.

Eastern Germany and Poland face a similar story. The main concern centres on the need for meaningful rain to drive crop establishment rates before crops enter winter.

Where is excess water the problem?

Northern Europe faces the opposite problem. Persistent rainfall over recent weeks has led to soil waterlogging, and this is now the main point of concern for tillage farmers in the region.

In the Baltic states and Finland, prolonged rainfall has caused waterlogging, delaying winter crop sowing and locally preventing the completion of harvesting. In parts of the Baltic states, persistent rains have brought winter crop sowing to a standstill altogether.

The timing sharpens the risk. With the planting window about to close, the winter crop area in the affected regions is expected to decrease. Some fields that growers cannot drill in time will likely be sown with spring crops instead, shifting rotation plans and input demand into the new year.

Which region has escaped the pressure?

Irish tillage farmers stand out as the exception. They have enjoyed an almost perfect autumn planting season, with crops of winter oilseed rape and cereals now well established.

For the rest of Europe, the next weeks of rainfall will determine how much of the intended winter area actually enters the ground. Growers in France, the Benelux countries, Germany and Poland should watch forecast rainfall as the driver of establishment rates, while Baltic growers should track the drilling window and prepare spring crop alternatives before it closes.