Ukraine's wheat and maize harvests are likely to decrease this year due to unfavourable weather during the autumn sowing and a smaller sown area. The wheat harvest is likely to decrease to 20.6 million tonnes from 22.5 millions tonnes in 2014, while maize output could fall to 23.0 million tonnes from 25.9 million tonnes.
About 85 percent of winter wheat plantings, which account for 95 percent of the country's overall wheat output, were in good and satisfactory condition as of mid-March.
However, the shares of good and satisfactory crops were at 93.4 percent a year earlier.
Early spring, gradual increase of air temperature and sufficient soil moisture will contribute to further improvement of wheat crop conditions.
Wheat productivity is expected to decrease due to reduction of mineral fertilisers application, as well as higher share of weak and sparse crops than during the previous two seasons.
The planted area of maize was likely to decline by about 10 percent to around 4.4 million hectares.
Source - http://www.brecorder.com/
