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IKAR in Mass Media

Late spring hits Black Sea grain yield, delays sowing

09 апреля 2013 года

MOSCOW/KIEV, April 9 (Reuters) - A late spring has cut the grain yield in Black Sea countries such as Russia and Ukraine, prompting analysts to slash their crop forecasts and delays in spring sowing, analysts said on Tuesday.

Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan were hit by drought in 2012 which slashed their combined grain crop by one third to 130 million tonnes. More normal weather patterns returned this year as parts of Russia and Ukraine saw heavy snowfall in March.

Ukraine was previously seen as the main driver for the region's export growth in 2013/14, with some help from Kazakhstan, while Russia's exportable surplus is expected to be limited by state restocking plans.

Snowfall across Ukraine has already delayed 2013 field work by two or three weeks and analysts say the late spring could reduce the yield of winter wheat and cut the sowing area under barley and other early grains.

In Russia, a warm and dry April has not been able to fix damage from heavy the snowfall seen in many parts of the country in March.

The only exception was the Southern region, where cereals development has benefitted from an abnormally warm winter and spring.

"The situation looks mixed now. Development is ahead of plan in the South, while all Central and Volga regions to the north from Voronezh and Volgograd are facing a large delay," the chief executive of agricultural analysts SovEcon, Andrei Sizov, said.

The condition of Russia's winter grain has deteriorated over the last week and was worse than a multi-year average because of the late spring, SovEcon said on Monday.

SovEcon has kept its Russia's 2013 grain crop forecast unchanged at between 83 million and 89 million tonnes, down from last year's 71 million, until the situation becomes clearer, Sizov said.

Russia's Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR) has cut its 2013 grain crop forecast to 89-90 million tonnes due to the late spring on Tuesday. Previously it expected the crop at 90-92 million tonnes.

WINTER CROP YIELDS IN UKRAINE

In Ukraine, a traditional producer of winter wheat, agriculture consultancy UkrAgroConsult on Tuesday lowered its forecast for the 2013 wheat harvest by 4 percent to 20.23 million tonnes.

"We lowered our forecast for winter crop yields because... persistence of the snow cover until late March in the western and northern regions increases infection of plants by fungus diseases", the consultancy said in a report.

Last week it cut its forecast for Ukraine's 2013 grain crop by 1.5 percent to 52.4 million tonnes due to a significant delay in spring grain sowing caused by snowfall across central, northern and western regions.

On Tuesday, UkrAgroConsult said later planting dates might negatively impact spring crop yields. "Seedlings of spring barley, oats, wheat, peas planted after April 10 are more prone to the risk of exposure to high air temperatures and topsoil drying, which slash crop productivity."

According to the data, provided by the Agriculture Ministry, farms had sown a total of 880,000 hectares of spring grains as of April 5 versus 2.1 million hectares at the same date in 2012.

UkrAgroConsult said it had reduced its forecast for 2013 barley output by 6.6 percent to 7.75 million tonnes but increased its estimate for the maize harvest to 21.8 million tonnes from 21.2 million.

"In view of this situation, many growers are going to somewhat reduce plantings of early spring crops and expand those of late ones - maize (corn), soybeans, sunflower, millet," it said.

"Because of this year's late start of spring field works many growers are going to prefer maize to replace part of their early spring grain crops," it said.

Prospects for Kazakhstan, the Black Sea region's top producer of hard wheat, remain unclear with no official forecasts available, while its state grain trader already sees difficulties for the country to repeat a record crop of 2011, when it harvested 27 million tonnes of grain.

"The harvest was at record level in 2011, of course it would be hard to reach that level," Zhaleliden Smagulov, deputy chairman of the Kazakh Food Contract Corporation, told reporters on Tuesday. Kazakhstan starts spring grain sowing in the middle of May.

Source: Reuters  |  #grain   |  Comments: 0   Views: 37

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