The pace of harvesting in Ukraine due to rainy weather is significantly inferior to last year’s, especially for corn, which by November 4 was harvested on 27% of the area (1.14 million hectares), while last year on this date was thinned 61% of the area (3.3 million hectares).
“Harvesting in Ukraine is slower than last year, and the average moisture content is very high due to the long rains in September and October. Farmers hope that frosts will reduce the moisture content of corn from 22-28% to an acceptable 16-20%, so they plan to postpone harvesting until winter or spring, especially if exports from the Black Sea ports are blocked, which will lead to lower prices,” according to the website of the electronic grain exchange GrainTrade on Monday.
Besides, this season the cost of drying grain has increased two or three times as compared to last year, from 60-100 UAH/ton/percent to 160-250 UAH/ton/percent due to the rise in price of gas and diesel fuel.
The exchange also specified that agrarians of Vinnitsa and Chernovtsy regions have already finished sunflower harvesting, while in Kharkiv region only 42% of sunflower crops are threshed. Most of all 380 thousand tons of soybeans were harvested in Khmelnytsky region and most of all the sugar beets (1.9 million tons) – in Vinnitsa region. The highest yield of grain and leguminous crops – 6.22 tons / ha was obtained by farmers of Khmelnytsky region.
As it was reported, Ukrainian agrarians harvested 53.11 million tons of major crops from the total area of 15.13 million hectares on November 4, with 4.3 million tons from 2 million hectares from October 28 – November 4.
The final yield of wheat in this season amounted to 19.2 million tons from 4.7 million hectares, barley – 5.5 million tons from 1.6 million hectares, rape – 3.1 million tons from 1.96 million hectares, pea – 261 tons from 111.5 million hectares.
In addition, November 4, 9 million tons of sunflower was gathered from 4.1 million hectares, 6.4 million tons of sugar beets from 105 thousand hectares, 6.3 million tons of corn from 1.1 million hectares, 3.1 million tons of soy from 1.3 million hectares, 151 tons of buckwheat from 111 thousand hectares and 98 tons of millet from 42.6 ha.
According to the Ministry, the average yield by all crops in the current season was 40.7 c/ha, including corn – 55.4 c/ha, wheat – 41.2 c/ha, of barley – 35.1 c/ha, rape – 28.9 c/ha, soybeans – 23.9 c/ha, peas – 23.4 c/ha, millet – 23.1 c/ha, sunflower – 22.0 c/ha, buckwheat – 13.6 c/ha, sugar beets – 488 c/ha.
