Erfurt (dpa/th) - The farms in Thuringia mainly grow grain on the arable land. Wheat, barley, rye or corn are cultivated on almost 60 percent of the 606,900 hectares of arable land in the country, the State Statistics Office said on Thursday. Due to high demand, the acreage for spring barley, which is mainly used as malting barley, reached its highest level in the past 14 years.
The most important type of grain remains winter wheat, which grew on an area of 200,500 hectares or 55 percent of the grain area. 31 percent of the grain area is used for the cultivation of barley. Winter barley, which has now started to be harvested, stands at 71,000 hectares, slightly below last year's level.
Because less silage maize was cultivated for the production of biogas, the total area under cultivation this year is 52,600 hectares, which is 9,000 hectares less than in the previous year.
