March 17, 2006

Ukraine to replant 546,000 hectares of winter wheat

Ukraine's farmers will have to replant 546,000 hectares of winter wheat, or 10.6 percent of the total planted area, with spring wheat as a result of the damage done by February frosts, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Winter wheat has been completely destroyed on 351,400 hectares, and is in a weak condition on the rest of the area to be replanted.

The damage to winter wheat makes it highly unlikely that Ukraine will this year equal the 2005 wheat harvest of 18.699 million tonnes. This is especially because, due to difficult weather conditions during the winter wheat planting campaign, the planted area was reduced to 5.14 million hectares from 6.32 million hectares the previous season.