KIEV (Reuters) — Ukrainian farms have speeded up winter grain sowing, taking advantage of a sudden spell of good weather, and have already sown 50 percent of the planned area, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.
Warm and dry weather set in at the weekend after a month of heavy rains across most of Ukraine which had made fields too wet for seeding machines and threatened the 2014 winter grain harvest.
Agricultural minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk has said the wheat harvest could fall by seven million tonnes to 15 million tonnes next year and analysts say Ukraine’s exportable wheat surplus could be down to three million tonnes in 2014-15 from 9-10 million tonnes this season.
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Weather forecasters say dry and warm weather could dominate most Ukrainian regions in the next 10 days, giving farmers the chance to complete the sowing.
Farms had sown 10 million acres of winter grains as of Oct. 7 or 50 percent of the forecast. Farms sowed 16 million acres of winter wheat at the same date in 2012, according to the ministry’s data.
“Farmers quickened autumn fieldwork once weather improved in early October. As recommended by scientists, planting of winter grains will be prolonged till October 10 in the Forest zone, October 15 in the Forest-Steppe zone and October 20 in the
Steppe zone,” analyst UkrAgroConsult said.
“Good soil moisture and an expected warm spell may ensure emergence of these crops and their satisfactory pre-winter development,” it said.
Winter wheat accounts for more than 90 percent of Ukraine’s overall wheat output and the ministry said farmers had sown nine million acres of the commodity or 54 percent of the forecast as of Oct.7.
Corn harvesting has also accelerated with 7.3 million tonnes of the crop being brought in by Oct.7. Farms harvested 27 percent of the sowing area, the ministry’s data showed.
Prysyazhnyuk said last week the slow pace of corn harvest would reduce Ukrainian grain exports in October to 2.2 to 2.3 million tonnes from an initially expected 2.8 million tonnes.
The former Soviet republic exported 768,700 tonnes of grain in the first seven days in October. This included 604,500 tonnes of wheat, 138,300 tonnes of corn and 20,600 tonnes of barley, the ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine, which plans to harvest a record 59-60 million tonnes of grain in 2013, exported 6.8 million tonnes of grain in the period from July 1 to Oct.7. Exports totalled 5.9 million tonnes of grain in the same period in 2012.
