In the current year, the planting campaign of both early and late spring crops in Ukraine developed not only in difficult weather conditions, but also in rather anomalous ones. Within frames of the longstanding monitoring of field works, APK-Inform experts closely followed the situation, and received whole information directly from market participants - agrarians, and regularly briefed all market operators about the situation and prospects for its development. To date, the harvesting campaign already started, and it is time to take draw the balances of the spring crops planting campaign, and assess the impact of weather conditions on the spring field works.
Start of the spring crops planting campaign
In order to estimate the prospects for the quality of future crop, we should recall the weather conditions under which agrarians provided crops planting. In terms of established favourable weather conditions, southern regions of Ukraine started the mass planting campaign of early spring grains and pulses in the second ten-day period of March 2017, and in the third ten-day period agrarians from all oblasts started crops planting works. At the same time, agricultural producers actively prepared the soil for application of mineral fertilizers for further planting of late spring crops. According to agrarians, in most oblasts the planting campaign rates in March 2017 were estimated as rather stable, due to the air temperature range which was acceptable for the reporting period, without sudden fluctuations in the daytime and in the night. But in several oblasts, there was a deficit of soil moisture content, which raised the risks about timely coming of sprouts. In April 2017, the situation with precipitations dramatically changed, which unfortunately did not provide favourable effect to the planting campaign in the whole country, and somewhat slowed the campaign of late spring crops.
April bad weather
Due to the dramatic change in weather conditions in the second ten-day period of April, agrarians not only suspended the planting campaign, but also feared about the condition of crops, its possible losses, poor development, etc. As a reminder, since April 19 in the southern, central and eastern regions the air temperatures significantly reduced, there were stormy winds, as well as short but heavy sleet precipitations. As a result of the weather phenomena, fields in Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad oblasts were partially waterlogged. In addition, agricultural producers of Kharkiv oblast noted that due to low air temperatures and unfavourable weather conditions, in the second ten-day period of April the realized herbicide treatments in the fields of winter wheat and rapeseed did not completely kill all weeds. Therefore, agrarians required additional herbicides treatments, which was realized in mid-May.
Due to the effects of low temperatures (to -3...5°C at night) and high moisture content, some oblasts faced slow growth of crops, and increased susceptibility to fungous diseases. According to agrarians from Odessa oblast, worsening of weather conditions in the region had a negative impact on the corn planted areas, including the losses, which resulted in partial or complete re-planting of the crop.
At the same time, in some raions o Mykolaiv and Kherson oblasts with a deficit of moisture content, the April snowfalls contributed to saturation of the soil with required moisture and provided a positive impact on the further development of crops. Thus, abnormal weather conditions did not cause any significant worsening in the condition of peas planted areas in the region. Moreover, the new snow cover (to 10-15 cm) protected the crops from frosts and increased moisture content in the soil, after warming.
In northern and western oblasts of Ukraine, there were no significant precipitations in the reporting period, but a serious reduction in air temperatures also adversely affected the crops areas. Agricultural producers of Chernihiv and Ternopil oblasts reported about some slowdown in development of winter wheat in the region, due to low temperatures: the plants experienced stress, which led to worsening of their condition and increased susceptibility to various diseases. At the same time, agrarians noted that they will focus on fungicide processing of the crops areas, in order to prevent further development of diseases.
May-June: expectations of heat and rains
After the April bad weather, most agrarians expected for further development of favourable weather phenomena, but the air temperature rates were unstable, and precipitation went locally only, so many oblasts faced the soil moisture deficit. So, in the third ten-day period of May heavy precipitations in the form of rains and hails in western oblasts of Ukraine adversely affected grain areas, slowed down the plant growth rates, and increased the risk of diseases susceptibility. According to agrarians of Lviv oblast, hails significantly damaged leaves of grain sprouts. At the same time, the significant precipitation depth led to development of various plant diseases, as well as increased the number of harmful insects. At the same time, in Odessa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and other oblasts there was a deficit of precipitations, drought trends developed, and the reserve of productive moisture content reduced, which adversely affected winter and spring crops areas.
To date, the weather continues keeping agrarians on their toes. In early July, many oblasts of Ukraine faced hurricanes and strong winds, which contributed to lodging and damaging to corn and sunflower seed areas.
We can say that despite the difficult agro-climatic conditions, which developed during the planting campaign of early and late spring crops, the market will not face significantly reduction of the qualitative indices of crops. But despite the start of the harvesting campaign, agrarians still did not lower their selling prices, fearing of the future development of weather phenomena, etc.
Lyudmila Slisarenko, Alexandrina Ovdienko, APK-Inform Agency
Comment by Andrei Kupchenko, grain market analyst at APK-Inform Agency
Variability of weather conditions in 2017 in Ukraine made it very difficult to forecast both crop production volumes and development of the market situation. In conjunction with the global factors, all above-mentioned indices impact on development of price dynamics on the grain market, which causes the absence of a traditional recession in the inter-season.
As for the current production forecasts, then as of July 7 APK-Inform Agency forecast the general harvest of grains and pulses in Ukraine at the level of 60.8 mln tonnes, down 8% compared with the record figures last season. In particular, the harvest of wheat will reach 24 mln tonnes (down 8%), barley - 7.4 mln tonnes (down 21%), and corn 26.7 mln tonnes (down 5%). Both reduction of grain planted areas by 2% compared with the figures in 2016/17 MY, and the expected decline of yield indices, in terms of adverse weather conditions, became the main negative factors in favour for reduction of the harvest volumes.
At the same time, it is important to stress the growth of planted areas under such crops as rye and peas by 19% and 60%, respectively. As a result, in the current season the harvest of rye will increase by 15% (nearly 450 thsd tonnes), and peas - up 26% (938 thsd tonnes).
It should be noted that changes in the weather conditions continue developing throughout the whole territory of Ukraine, which has its strong influence on late crops, and APK-Inform analysts have to make adjustments of the forecasts.
