Today's call

Crop year 2025/2026 · stage Stem Extension · 2026-05-26

NEUTRAL, regions split, no directional call
2 of 11 regions below-average, 4 above. Crops are growing rapidly. Drought and late frost are risks.
UK farmer sentiment this week: mildly negative (-0.11). Confidence overlay ×1.00, sentiment is neutral on the directional call.
What this means for price
With regions split, there's no directional price read this week. The historical yield-to-price relationship only bites when the yield call is itself directional.

How our yield calls have related to ex-farm price over the years (and why the link is looser than you'd think): yield and price.

Active early-warning signal

disease pressure running 2.5× above its recent baseline (national), a sentiment-side keyword anomaly. Read alongside the weather call, not in place of it.

Per-region call

Predicted yield anomaly (t/ha vs trend) and compound stress per DEFRA region. Below-average regions first.

Region Call Yield anomaly Compound stress
North West & MerseysideBelow average-0.79+1.6
Northern IrelandBelow average-0.68+0.5
North Eastn/a-0.15+0.7
South Westn/a-0.07-0.0
Scotlandn/a+0.08+0.4
West Midlandsn/a+0.28-0.7
East Midlandsn/a+0.29-0.8
Yorkshire & The HumberAbove average+0.35-1.2
WalesAbove average+0.69+2.1
South East & LondonAbove average+0.71-1.0
EasternAbove average+0.74-2.1

How we get here: Methodology · Weather detail · Sentiment pulse · Track record