WEST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Winter flax:

At the time being the winter flax plants are between 85 and 95 cm high. A few fields have already been pulled out.
The pulling operations are likely to be continued this week if the weather conditions allow farmers to do so.

Spring flax:

FRANCE

The average height of the flax plants is now around 75-95 cm.
Many fields have laid down because of the rains that happened during the week end.

The temperatures should be increasing this week and there might be storms from Wednesday to Friday on all of the flax growing areas. Additional flax plants are likely to lay down.

We noted however that plants that had laid down straightened up and then laid down again as you can see on the pictures below, taken in Herlies (Nord) on June 7,10 and 20.

Laid down flax in Herlies (Nord) June 7 2016

Herlies June 10 2016

The accumulated amount of rain from March to June has never been that high. In Beauvais area
350 mm of rain was recorded from March 20 to June 17.
Simultaneously the sunshine was about half as usual during the first fortnight of June and the second fortnight is likely to be the same.

Because of the lack of sunshine and the excess of water the blossoming will be spread over time periods and as a consequence the pulling operations could be delayed.

BELGIUM – NETHERLANDS

The average height of the flax plants is now around 70-90 cm.

The straw tonnage is expected to be higher than last year.

For the three countries of Western Europe, the straw tonnage is expected to be between 7 and 8 tons per hectare.

EAST EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

BELARUS

In the North, West and East regions the flax plants are at the moment from 20 to 50 cm high and have just started to blossom.

In the South West region 30% of the crop particularly suffered from heat and drought (there was no rain for four weeks). The quality of flax will be very low and they might even be completely lost.

The 70% left are about 75-85 cm high and the blossoming is now over.

It started to rain last week in Belarus, but it is now too late. The quality of the crop is expected to be lower than last year.