Autumn-sown grains lie slumbering beneath the snow. Tike has just completed the statistics on forecast autumn-sown areas, or the quantities of wheat and rye sown this autumn.

Autumn is the principal sowing season in other parts of Europe, but up to now, the severe winter in Finland has not permitted autumn sowing to any extent. The varieties for autumn sowing are separate from those for spring sowing, and they usually produce higher yields than spring-sown varieties – the young shoots of winter grains are already well into growth by the time sowing of spring grains is only just getting underway.

This autumn, almost 26,000 hectares were sown to wheat, i.e. a great deal more than last year. Wheat sown the previous autumn grew on 16,400 hectares in the summer. September was wet last year, making the sowing conditions poor, and the period when it was possible to sow was brief. This autumn, the sowing conditions were better. Spring wheat was grown on 202,000 hectares this summer.

This autumn, 27,000 hectares were sown to rye – also much more than last year, as this summer 11,300 hectares were under winter rye. Spring rye was grown on 5,100 hectares in the summer.

This year’s rye harvest, which according to the Tike crop statistics was 42 million kilograms, covers 40% of annual domestic rye usage according to Tike’s grain balance sheet estimate.

The largest area under rye in history was in 1934. In that year, rye was grown on 246,000 hectares. The cultivation area has diminished a great deal, although yields per hectare are today much higher than in those days.

Farmers were asked to provide their estimated autumn sowing areas in October in conjunction with the harvest questionnaire. The questionnaire was filled in by 5,600 farmers, of whom 513 said that they had sown winter rye and 532 winter wheat.