March 2, 2012

In order to replace winter grains damaged by unusually severe frosts, Ukraine will plant spring grains for this year's harvest on 9.5 million hectares, compared with 7.8 million hectares last year, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday (Mar 1).

Ukraine aims at keeping its total grain planted area for this year's harvest at about 15.5 million hectares, the same as last year.

The ministry said corn would be planted this spring on 4.5-5 million hectares, which is between 1-1.5 million hectares more than last year. Spring barley planted area will be increased by 300,000 hectares to three million hectares, and may be increased further to 3.2 million hectares if the damage to winter crops proves greater than estimated. Spring wheat planted area will be increased by 100,000 hectares, to 400,000 hectares.

The ministry also said that of the 8.4 million hectares planted with winter grains, crops survived on 5.5-6 million hectares, including winter wheat on 4.5-5 million hectares, barley on 0.8-1 million hectares, and rye on 300,000 hectares.

In 2011 Ukraine's grain harvest in clean weight was 56.7 million tonnes. Ukraine's grain harvest in 2010 fell by 14.8% on the year to 39.23 million tonnes in clean weight because of drought.