Britain's wheat crop grew by 8.3 per cent to 15.473 million tonnes in 2004 from 14.288 million in 2003 following an 8.4 per cent boost in plantings, the UK farm ministry said yesterday.

In its final estimates for last year's harvest, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the area devoted to wheat grew to 1.990 million hectares from 1.837 million previously.

It said wheat yields were mainly steady in 2004 compared with 2003 at 7.8 tonnes per hectare.

The Defra wheat output data are almost exactly the mid-range of estimates produced from a survey of Britain's major grain traders made earlier in the season, which pegged the crop at between 15 and 16 million tonnes.

In its first set of estimates for harvest 2004, published in October last year, Defra had estimated the nation's wheat crop at a higher 15.706 million tonnes.

The farm ministry has also estimated UK barley output at 5.815 million tonnes, a fall of 8.7 per cent on the 6.370 million tonnes grown in 2003. The final barley production estimate was based on a 6.3 per cent drop in annual plantings and an only marginal fall in yield from 5.9 tonnes per hectare in 2003 to 5.8 in 2004.

Defra also published final figures for rapeseed, in which it estimated harvest 2004 output at 1.609 million tonnes - nine per cent or 162,000 tonnes down on the record 1.771 million tonnes threshed in 2003.