Winter crops in Ukraine are at risk

Specialists of the Ukrhydrometeorological Center emphasize that due to the late emergence of seedlings, almost all crops are at risk due to weak development. At the same time, the agrometeorological conditions of the second decade of October in Ukraine were mainly favorable for the rooting and initial growth of winter crops. According to the experts' report, as a result of effective rains in most of the country, productive moisture was replenished in all soil layers. Soil drought persisted only in some areas of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, where the rainfall deficit continued.

As of the beginning of the third decade of October, in the areas where effective precipitation occurred, the upper 0-10 cm soil layer was strongly or well moistened for quite a long time. With the predominance of temperatures close to normal, winter wheat sown at the beginning of October showed massive grain germination, however, due to low air temperatures during the day and frost at night, sprouts began to form only in places. At the same time, the lag behind the phase development of winter crops from the average multi-year terms was about two to three weeks, so their condition and winter hardiness will depend on the weather conditions of the second half of autumn and winter.

As for the current agricultural campaign, so far grain and leguminous crops in Ukraine have been harvested from a total area of ​​9.757 million hectares. This is 88% of the planned pre-harvest area of ​​11.116 million hectares. Harvesting of late grain crops is currently underway. As for oil crops, the harvesting of sunflower and soybeans is currently continuing. Sugar beet harvesting is also carried out in Ukraine.

Note that since the beginning of the current marketing year, Ukraine has exported 11.041 million tons of grain and leguminous crops. At the same time, 592 thousand tons of grain were shipped only in the current month. As representatives of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy reported, as of the same date last year, the total figure for shipments was 6.822 million tons. In addition, the export of Ukrainian flour since the beginning of the season is estimated at more than 20,000 tons. It should be noted that the harvest in Ukraine is already coming to an end. So far, 56.6 million tons of the new crop, which has been harvested on an area of ​​15.8 million hectares, has been threshed. In total, farmers harvested 37.3 million tons of grain, 15.8 million tons of oilseeds, and 3.5 million tons of sugar beet. At the same time, even despite the war, our country currently exports 5.5% of the world's wheat reserves.