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Thanks to the record area of winter sowing, the 2020 Wheat Crop may reach 80 million tons next year !!!
According to the Ministry of Agriculture on November 18, winter crops were sown on 18.2 million hectares, which is 3.9% more than the forecasted area. Last year, they occupied 17.6 million hectares. The overwhelming majority of regions completed sowing and performed in full or even exceeded it, and some significantly exceeded forecast indicators, Oleg Sukhanov, head of the grain direction of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, told Agroinvestor. In his opinion, there will be additional counts, and the total sowing area will be higher than the operational report.
By the end of last week, most of the winter crops were sown in the Rostov region – over 2.6 million hectares, followed by the Stavropol (1.9 million hectares) and Krasnodar (1.67 million hectares) of the region. The first five are closed by the Volgograd and Saratov regions, which occupied winter crops of 1.5 million ha and 1.2 million ha, follows from the monitoring of the Center for Agricultural Analytics.
According to Sukhanov, special problems with winter crops have not yet been noted. “We can say that a certain risk may be associated with the overgrowing of winter crops in the regions of the Center and the Volga region – the autumn vegetation was too long due to the unusually warm weather in November,” he notes. – Also a certain concern is the lack of snow cover. In the event of severe cold weather (-15 ° C and below), winter crops may suffer. There are no frosts yet, and snowfall is expected in early December, so we hope that the situation with winter crops will normalize. ”
In early November, the National Union of Agricultural Insurers announced that, judging by space monitoring data, the condition of winter crops in the main agricultural regions of the Central Federal District raises serious concerns because of a lag in development. The vegetation index of plants was 10-20% below normal. This could be due to the insufficient level of accumulated precipitation, as well as the negative air temperature in the absence of snow cover, the union suggested.
So far, the harvest for 2020 is not bad, Sukhanov thinks. “There is a chance to get about 80 million tons of wheat, but a lot will depend on the weather and spring sowing – on what volumes and weather conditions it will be performed,” the expert predicts.
Vice-President of the Russian Grain Union Alexander Korbut agrees that sowing winter cereals has gone at an accelerated pace, which gives a good backlog for next year’s harvest. “And given that weather conditions, judging by the forecasts, will be favorable for winter crops, in 2020 we can expect a very decent grain yield,” he predicts. However, the question is whether it is good or bad, because a high yield always implies low prices, he adds. According to Korbut, there have been no statements from farmers about problems with winter crops yet. Although information about a possible moisture deficit in certain areas of the Krasnodar Territory comes from time to time, there is no clear evidence, he clarifies.
Agrofirm “Progress” (Krasnodar Territory) this year increased the sowing of winter wheat and barley by 15% compared to 2018, up to 8 thousand ha. The company also resumed sowing winter rape. “The sowing took place at the optimum time, which we try to observe from year to year – from September 25 to October 25,” says Alexander Nezhenets, the company’s general director. “In general, the weather favored field work, but there was no rainfall in the last week of sowing, as a result, seedlings of grain sown during this period were not as friendly as those obtained during an earlier sowing, from the end of September to the middle of last month.” He believes that, based on the pace of winter sowing and weather conditions in the region, next year the Kuban will set a new record for grain production.
“Prodimeks” sowed winter crops on more than 190 thousand hectares, which slightly exceeds the area of the previous year. “The sowing is almost finished, but in the South some enterprises are still sowing separate fields,” says Evgeni Kostenko, adviser to the holding’s agricultural division. According to him, in the Center over a large area overgrown winter-excess vegetative mass was formed due to a fairly warm autumn, and in the South there are problems with moisture reserves. “Wintering will depend on the weather conditions of the cold months: if there is a warm multi-snowy winter, then the likelihood of problems is great, if the winter is cold and with relatively little snow cover, then such overgrown crops can give a good harvest,” Kostenko believes.
He confirms that the weather favored autumn sowing, as autumn was warm, dry and long. “Only the late crops in the South have not yet fully sprouted; in most territories, the development of winter crops is very good,” Kostenko adds.
