Planting and Variety Survey FAQs

The Planting and Variety Survey provides the UK planted area estimates for the upcoming harvest.

This is a survey of cereal and oilseed rape growers who are asked to submit information on harvest area by crop and variety for the upcoming harvest (harvest 2026), plus information on the previous harvest too (harvest 2025) to understand change year-on-year.

We use these year-on-year changes to give insight into the UK crop areas.

The AHDB Planting and Variety Survey is the only annual pre-harvest survey that gives an early estimate of what might be available from the upcoming cereals and oilseed rape harvest in the UK.

AHDB is committed to providing essential industry insight that will support you to make well-informed business decisions. Producing these early insights will only be possible with your help.

If you are returning a postal form, please return this to us by Monday 11 May 2026.

The online survey will close on Friday 15 May 2026.

Government programmes that help farmers manage their land in an environmentally friendly way.

These schemes are voluntary agreements that pay farmers and other land managers to adopt practices that benefit the environment. Examples include Countryside Stewardship, Environmental Stewardship and the Sustainable Farming Incentive.

The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) is not currently accepting new applications. Please only enter land that has already been accepted into an SFI agreement, where applicable.

Please type the name of the variety and the area you planted in the “Other crop variety” section for the specific crop.

Yes, an email address lets us contact you if we have any questions about your response.

Your email address will only be used in this manner and will not be used to contact you for any other purpose.

Yes, we use the data for last year’s harvest to produce an estimate for this year, so this information is necessary for the survey.

If your crop failed last year, please only enter the area that was successfully harvested.

If your crop failed this year, please only enter the area you believe will be successfully harvested.

You can add any additional notes at the end of the form if you wish.

Please declare all crop areas you intend to harvest, whether these are rented or owned.

If you only have a few fields left to drill, please enter the area you believe will be harvested or wait to fill in the form, providing this is still before the final online deadline (deadlines above).

If the majority of your fields haven’t been drilled, again please wait to fill in the form or contact us at cereals.mi@ahdb.org.uk

Aggregated and anonymised results will be published on our website on Tuesday 9 June 2026:  ahdb.org.uk/cereals-oilseeds/planting-variety-survey-results