Drought cuts Ukraine's winter grains by 20%

Ukraine lost 20% of its winter grains after a cold snap destroyed plants weakened by a drought, and the winter-wheat crop is set to dive 44%, the national weather centre said.

Most of the 5.8 million hectares (14.3 million acres) on which winter grains sprouted were sown with wheat, said Tetiana Adamenko, head of the centre's agro-meteorology department. Plants were judged to be in good condition on 40% of the remaining 4.6 million hectares, satisfactory on 30% and poor on 30%, she said.

Drought last fall damaged about 33% of Ukrainian winter grains, Kiev-based researcher UkrAgroConsult said in January. The country was among nations in eastern Europe affected by a cold snap that month and in February that killed more than 100 people, stranded tens of thousands in their homes and hampered road, rail and sea traffic.

Adamenko predicted yields of 3.1 million to 3.2 million tonnes a hectare for the grains in good condition and 1.5 million to 1.7 million tonnes for those rated satisfactory.

This year's winter-wheat crop will drop to about 12.5 million tonnes from 22.3 million tonnes, according to Adamenko. The harvest may be as high as 15 million tonnes under favorable conditions and as low as 10 million tonnes if no rain falls, she said.

Crop losses for winter barley came to 40% of planted areas, leaving 500,000 hectares covered by the grain, according to Adamenko.

Ukraine will probably harvest 42 million to 50 million tonnes of grain this year, government newspaper Uryadovyi Kurier reported, citing Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. It predicted exports of 6 million to 10 million tonnes of wheat, 11.5 million to 12.5 million tonnes of corn and about 3.7 million tonnes of barley in the marketing year from July 1.