MHP desccicated over 1 thousand hectares of sunflower

22 August 2018, 11:41, Oilseeds

All the enterprises of the Myronivsky Hliboproduct (MHP) agro-industrial holding have started the campaign of sunflower desccication. By mid-August, they have already desccicated over 1 thousand hectares of the crops.

This information was shared by Oleksiy Serhienko, the chief agronomist of the holding, in his comment to Latifundist.com during a working session in the Vinnytsia region.

Prompt action was called for by the rapid spread of root rot, Sclerotinia stem rot, Phomopsis, ballspeck disease, and grey rot of the crop caused by excessive precipitation in July and August.

“Today sunflowers are massively affected by diseases but none seems alarmed. Ukraine has 6 mln ha covered with sunflower, but half of the plants are contaminated. None knows what to do with the affected plants, so we have decided to conduct desiccation and prepare for harvesting. By August 16, we have already conducted desiccation of sunflowers in large areas and we will desiccate other areas too. This has never happened before,” – said the chief agronomist of MHP.

Oleksiy Serhienko also added that this season has witnessed the increase in the gross output of the product at the expense of its quality. Therefore, agronomic services are obliged to take every measure to preserve the high quality of the crop.

To illustrate his point, Oleksiy Serhienko cited the example of Argentina where the spread of Phomopsis of sunflower cost the local farmers 50% of their export output in 2001.

"At that time, Argentina planted 4 million hectares of sunflower, but its yield was about 1.5 tonnes per hectare due to diseases. The country did not reach the desired volume of exports and declared a default in 2002. One of the reasons for that was the rotting of the sunflower,” explained Oleksiy Serhienko.

Reference: Yuri Shlonchak, the head of the export sales department of the Agrarian Department of MHP, noted that the weather conditions in Ukraine caused great harm to the grain harvest.