Helpful weather – for crops at least – has set grains crops in two of Europe's bigger producers off to a strong start, with Romania forecasting a 35% jump in its wheat harvest.

Romania, Eastern Europe's second-ranked grain producer after Poland, said that snow had protected autumn-sown grain from bitterly cold winter temperatures, besides providing a store of moisture to help ensure moisture levels are restored following drought last year.

While autumn wheat sowings for harvesting this summer eased to 2.1m hectares, from 2.2m hectares a year before, production looks likely to show a substantial improvement.

"We expected a yield of above 3.3 tonnes per hectare which will lead to an output of around 7m tonnes," the official said.

Last year's drought limited production to 5.2m tonnes.

Rain in Spain 

Separately, Spain has seen heavy rains which, while delaying planting and fertilizer applications, bodes well for ensuring crops can be kept watered on farms often cursed by dry conditions.

Farmers have earmarked 1.30m hectares of land for soft wheat, 5.7% more than last year, Spain's farm ministry on Tuesday.

However, unlike in many other European countries, the rise in wheat sowings has not come at the expense of barley, for which planting are set to rise by 2.9%.

Durum, the wheat used to make pasta, has fallen in growers' affections, with plantings down 3.1% at 518,100 hectares, while sowings of oats, rye and triticale are estimated to have shown smaller declines.

Corn, which was not included in the data, may show a 10% slide in plantings come the spring sowing season, because of lower prices, some farmers believe.