Germany's wheat harvest will not, after all, beat last year's 25.7m tonnes, the country's agriculture minister said in a rare piece of disappointing news from European grain producers.

The ministry has, in its first harvest estimate, pegged German output at 24.8m tonnes this year, with overall grain production dropping 1.6% to 49.2m tonnes.

The wheat estimate is below that forecast by a number of analysts, most recently Toepfer, which on Monday predicted a 26m-tonne crop.

And it follows a series of reports of harvesting revealing better-than-expected yields, particularly in Northern Europe.

Quality question

The ministry report gave weight to market suspicions that this year's crop will be of lower quality than last year, pointing to slightly lower protein content.

Many analysts, including Toepfer, have forecast significant downgrades of milling wheat to feed after rain in July and August.

However, the data failed to help Paris milling wheat, which was depressed by news that Egypt had chosen US and Russian wheat ahead of European to fulfil a 120,000-tonne order.

Paris milling wheat for November ended down E1.75 at 129.00 a tonne.

Rape harvest

Wednesday's report added that German rapeseed production would come in at 6.21m tonnes this year, better than last year's 5.1m-tonne harvest and the 6.0m-tonne figure the market had been expecting.

Farmers had increased rapeseed plantings by 7.3%, the ministry said. The crop has also been blessed by benign weather.