Cereal and oilseed rape harvest: final estimates - 2017

5. Wheat

Scottish wheat is mostly soft wheats; used predominantly for distilling, but is also used for animal feed. Scotland imports hard wheats for milling (for bread making) as our climate does not suit hard wheat varieties.

Wheat Estimates (charts 13 and 14)

While the area of wheat production has remained constant in the last few years, production this year is estimated to have fallen four per cent to 889,000 tonnes. Wheat yields were estimated to have fallen by four per cent.

Wheat yields have not seen the general increases in trend that we see with barley, with the latest ten-year period only being one per cent higher than the previous ten years. At 8.12 tonnes per hectare, this year's estimated yield is below the ten-year average of 8.30.

Chart 13 - Wheat: Area, Yield and Production

Chart 14 - Wheat Year-on-Year Change: Area, Yield and Production