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June 28, 2000
LOW YIELD POTENTIAL IN CENTRAL UKRAINE DESPITE NORMAL WEATHER
Kirovohrad oblast, in central Ukraine, escaped the severe drought that prevailed in Odessa and other southern oblasts this spring. Precipitation in Kirovohrad between April 1 and June 20 was near normal, but not abundant, and temperatures were not unusually high. Despite marginally good weather, however, Landsat satellite imagery indicates that winter wheat is in poor shape, marked by thin stands and relatively little increase in vigor (i.e., little or no increase in red color) between May 8 and June 9. Note the sharp contrast between crop conditions in Kirovohrad on May 8 with those in Krasnodar Kray, in southern Russia, on April 28. Despite the earlier calendar date of the Krasnodar scene, the winter grains would have been at approximately the same stage of crop development: two to three weeks prior to flowering. Vegetative indices derived from NOAA/AVHRR imagery from the first half of June indicate that overall crop conditions in Ukraine, particularly in the south and east, are worse than last year.
Several factors have contributed to the poor current conditions:
Winter-grain establishment was delayed throughout most of central, southern, and eastern Ukraine because of low surface-soil moisture last fall. Conditions improved over the course of the winter, but more than one million hectares of winter wheat reportedly required re-seeding in the spring.
The U.S. agricultural attache in Kiev reported at the outset of the growing season that constraints on the availability of agricultural inputs -- chiefly fuel, fertilizers, and plant-protection chemicals -- would be even greater than in 1999. (Meanwhile, crops in Krasnodar benefitted from a modest year-to-year increase in fertilizer availability and generally good weather, as indicated by the satellite imagery.)
Although spring precipitation in central Ukraine was near normal and the region was able to dodge the drought, rainfall was not sufficient to generate a significant increase in yield from last year. Yield potential was hampered also by two episodes of cold weather during May which reportedly damaged near one million hectares of winter and spring crops.
Harvest of winter barley has already begun in southern Ukraine. As of June 25, winter-wheat was in various stages of grain-fill and maturity throughout Ukraine; harvest should be underway in the south by early July.
For more information, contact Mark Lindeman with the Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division on (202) 720-0888.
