Back in the beginning of harvest, no one could expect Ukraine’s sunseed crop to be that poor.

Early sunflower planting – two weeks ahead of normal – resulted in similarly early harvest. Moreover, the harvest pace is somewhat faster than last year. Among other factors, it is promoted by dry weather almost all over Ukraine. Yield is a bit lower than last year, but this decrease was expected.

Everything was excellent, the sunseed crop was expected to far exceed 10.5 MMT, specifically to approximate 10.8 MMT (a bit below the 2013 record). But this does not take into account the situation in Donetsk and Luhanskу – a separate matter we’ll dwell on a bit below.

The crop situation began to change sharply once harvest started in the southern regions of Ukraine. Very high temperature in the pollination period did cause irreparable damage to the crop, and sunseed yield appeared far below last year’s level, especially in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Comparing the current values with last year’s ones, we see rather a deplorable picture. Because of dropped yields, we’ll be short of at least 500 KMT of sunseed in these four regions alone. And if we calculate losses for the whole Ukraine, they will reach at least 1 MMT.

Source - http://www.blackseagrain.net/