Warm autumn lifts hopes for Ukraine wheat growers
Ukraine's farmers have, like their Russian peers, managed to sow far more wheat than seemed likely a month ago, as "abnormally warm" weather allowed fieldwork well beyond the typical end of the planting window.
Ukraine's farmers finished their autumn planting campaign with 6.30m hectares of winter wheat sown, out of total grain seedings of 7.73m hectares, Kiev-based UkrAgroConsult said.
While that means a decline of 353,000 hectares of winter wheat year on year, many investors had expected a far bigger decline after persistent rains and cold hampered early seeding progress in many areas.
As of the end of September, farmers had planted 2.2m hectares of winter wheat – down from 4.6m hectares a year before.
'Active growth'
"Warm weather in November lengthened the suitable autumn period for winter crop planting by 1.5-2 weeks," besides making up "to some extent" for the impact on crop development of the cold September, UkrAgroConsult said.
Indeed, "higher temperatures and enough soil moisture promoted active growth and development of winter crops".
Although two-thirds of winter grains was planted after October 1, when the ideal sowing window is over in most parts of the country, "90% of them have emerged owing to warm weather", the influential consultancy said.
'Vey hardy'
And even on ground that seedlings have yet to emerge, farmers have hopes of decent yields, if less than for typical winter wheat results, typically some 20% better than for spring crop.
"Crops wintering at the stage of underground seedlings are very hardy.
"These plants emerge in spring and, if cared for properly, can generate satisfactory grain yields - often higher than early spring crops, especially in the steppe zone."
UkrAgroConsult compared this year's late-autumn weather to that in 2010, when yields went on to "average 3.24 tonnes per hectare with a total harvest of 25.4m tonnes".
Russian catch-up
The late catch-up in plantings mirrors that in neighbouring Russia, where winter grain sowings have comfortably beaten the 14.0m-hectare figure forecast by the country's farm ministry after rain delays during the main sowing window.
The ministry had initially targeted 16.4m hectares of plantings.
The extent of winter grain plantings has an impact on prices of spring crops, such as corn and sunflowers, too, in giving an indication of the amount of ground left to sow in the March-to-May period.
Source: Agrimoney.com
