Rains in Ukraine in the past two days will add moisture to the soil for sowing winter crops, according to the director of the the plant growing department at the Ukrainian Agrarian Policy and Food Ministry, Oleksandr Demydov.
“The amount of rains in the past two days will be enough for sowing
[winter crops] in all of the Ukrainian regions,” the ministry’s press
service reported on Tuesday, citing Demydov.
He said that weather this year is rather favorable and it allows
increasing the terms of sowing of winter grain crops. It is planned that
the sowing campaign in most of the regions of Ukraine will finish by
October 15, 2012, while in southern regions and in Crimea they will
continue until November 1, 2012.
The official said that winter crops in grain as of October 9, 2012
were sowed on 6.6 million hectares, or 81% of the target. In particular,
winter wheat was sowed on 5.8 million hectares, or 87% of the target,
rye was sowed on 292,000 hectares or 95% of the target and winter barley
was sowed on 512,000 hectares.
He said that Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Chernihiv regions almost ended the sowing campaign.
As reported, according to the ministry, Ukraine in the 2013 harvest
will sow winter crops on 9.1 million hectares, which will be 3.3% down
on 2012. However, Agricultural Policy and Food Minister Mykola
Prysiazhniuk recently forecast an increase in the areas sown with winter
crops in 2012, to 9.2 million hectares.
