Ukraine's 2015 winter wheat harvest is likely to fall to between 21 and 22 million tonnes from around 24 million last year due to a smaller yield, Ukrainian weather forecasters said on Thursday. According to forecasters' estimates, the yield of winter wheat, which accounts for around 95 percent of Ukraine's overall wheat output, could decrease to 3.3 tonnes per hectare this year from 4.0 tonnes in 2014.

Analysts, however, estimated an even lower winter wheat crop outlook at 19 to 20 million tonnes. Ukraine increased the area sown for the 2015 winter wheat harvest by about 11 percent to 6.8 million hectares. Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Oleksiy Pavlenko told this week that a larger area would compensate for winter losses this year and that the former Soviet republic forecast a good crop in 2015.

Pavlenko said 13 percent of winter grains could be reseeded this spring with spring crops or oilseeds, while Mykola Kulbida, head of Ukraine's state weather centre, told a news conference that the reseeded area would reach 15 percent. Ukraine usually loses about 8 to 10 percent of its winter crops due to unfavourable weather.

Source - http://www.brecorder.com/