June 15, 2011

Romania's 2011 wheat crops could increase by 15%

Romania's wheat crops could reach 6.6 million tonnes in 2011, up more than 15% from 2010's 5.6 million tonnes, according to estimates from Agriculture Minister Valeriu Tabara's.

"It is possible to get one million tonnes more of wheat crops this year compared with 2010, as the crops look now, although the areas under wheat is something smaller. For the time being, there is no problem with the wheat, except for some areas in central and western Romania because of the June drought and the absence of relative humidity in soil," Tabara said.

He said no irrigation was needed this year for the wheat because there was enough rain in the southern parts of the country, where the largest areas under wheat are.

"Wheat harvesting will start in the first ten days of July and I am expecting harvesting to end relatively soon because there are machineries and technology to help, so as to avoid the crops being damaged by drought," said Tabara.

"As far as corn is concerned, the area under maize is 400,000 hectares larger and the crop, although delayed in some areas, looks good now," he said.

Farmers in Romania's large cereals areas are also expecting better crops in 2011 because of the technologies used, despite a 200,000-ha cut in the areas under wheat.

"The average yield of wheat as it looks now will push the final crops to over 3.5 tonnes per hectare, which means considerably more than in 2010, despite a 200,000-ha shrinkage in the land under wheat, to 1.8-million hectares," farmers said.