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Production
Estimates and Crop Assessment Division |
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Production
Estimates and Crop Assessment Division |
April 15, 2003
Uzbekistan's winter wheat crop, planted last fall for harvest in June, has benefited from favorable March weather. Winter grains broke dormancy and resumed vegetative growth later than usual this year because of below-normal February temperatures, but warm weather and generous rainfall during the past month have enabled the crop to compensate for a slow start. Vegetative indices, a measure of crop vigor derived from AVHRR satellite imagery, indicate that crop growth during the first half of March was less vigorous than at the same time last year (see graphs). Crop development had advanced by the end of the month, but vegetative indices indicate that the crop growth in late March was less vigorous than in both 2002 and 2001. Despite the delayed resumption of spring growth, winter grain conditions are described as good by local observers. Abundant snowfall replenished irrigation reserves, and agricultural officials suggest that wheat output could match last year's record level. Initial USDA grain forecasts of 2003/04 production will be released on May 12, 2003.
Wheat output has climbed rapidly since 1993/94--when output totaled only 0.8 million tons--in response to a drive from agricultural officials to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat production. Production reached a record 5.0 million tons in 2002/03, matching the country's estimated domestic consumption. Wheat area has nearly doubled in the past ten years, from 0.7 million hectares in 1993/94 to an estimated 1.2 million in 2002/03. (Cotton area, meanwhile, declined from a maximum of 2.1 million hectares in 1987/88 to 1.4 million in 2000/01, and has remained at approximately 1.4 million for the past three years.) The wheat production zone has expanded in all directions from three key provinces in central Uzbekistan that used to be responsible for three-fourths of the nation's total output.
In general, wheat yields have increased with the expansion in area, due largely to a significant increase in the amount of wheat under irrigation:. last year, over 85 percent of Uzbekistan grain was irrigated compared to about 40 percent in 1990. (Virtually all of the cotton in Uzbekistan is irrigated.) Persistent drought reduced yields of the 2000/02 and 2001/03 wheat harvests, interrupting the upward yield trend which began in 1993/94. Abundant winter and spring precipitation replenished irrigation reserves for the 2002/03 crop, and estimated wheat yield (based on preliminary official harvest results) rebounded to over 4.0 tons per hectare, a remarkable 50-percent increase over the average of the previous five years.
