Ukrainian Winter Grains Continue Vegetation, Researcher Says
January 10, 2012, 9:06 AM EST
By Kateryna Choursina
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) — Ukrainian winter grains continued vegetation after warm weather and an absence of snow in December, making them more vulnerable to possible frosts, UkrAgroConsult said.
Plants are wasting nutrients accumulated earlier, curbing their resistance to low temperatures, the Kyiv-based agricultural researcher said today in an e-mailed statement. Crops will survive the winter successfully in the absence of severe frosts or the formation of an ice crust, it said.
Winter grains, comprised mostly of wheat, sprouted on 83 percent of planted areas, or 6.9 million hectares (17 million acres), as of Jan. 5, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on its website. Plants were in good condition on 1.8 million hectares and classified as weak on 2.3 million hectares and satisfactory elsewhere, the statement showed.
Ukrainian 2012 winter-grain plantings rose 3.8 percent to 8.39 million hectares, according to the state statistics office.
–Editors: Dan Weeks, John Deane.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kateryna Choursina in Kyiv at kchoursina@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net