20 June 2018, 09:43, Grain

Winter wheat harvest expected to decline 10% due to drought

This year, the harvest of winter wheat is expected to be 8-10% lower than last year due to drought. This was reported by the Head of the Agrometeorological Department of the Hydrometeorological Center of Ukraine Tatiana Adamenko, UNN writes.

"If we speak about our main crop — winter wheat, the yield should be around 8-10% less than last year. Last year Ukraine harvested a good crop. However, today we estimate the prospects of winter wheat at about 23-23.5 million tons," she says.

According to her, the gross yield of grain crops is expected at lower rates than the previous one due to drought. Still, Tatiana Adamenko notes that the harvest losses will not be critical.

Tatiana Adamenko said that the drought situation is constantly changing. As of June 10, half of the territory was in the state of severe drought. Rains that took place from 11 to 18 June changed the situation in a positive way. To date, at least 25% of the territory is in the state of drought.

Reference: as of June 18, the first 10.5 thou. tons of winter wheat have been threshed from 4 thou. hectares. Agrarians of Mykolayiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions started winter wheat harvesting.