Ukrainian spring sowing speeds up in April after winter delay

Spring plantings in Ukraine sped up during the first half of April after a persistent cold winter kept farmers from sowing crops until the end of March, with over half of the planned acreage now sown as off April 16, data from the Ukrainian Ministry of Agriculture showed Monday.

Currently 828,000 hectares of spring barley were sown with the bulk completed over the past fortnight with 203,000 ha sown over the past weekend alone, bringing the total up to 52% of the planned acreage.

However, that compares to the 1.5 million ha sown at the same time last year, when plantings started in early March.

The country plans to plant 2.4 million ha this year, up from the 1.6 million ha in 2017.

Over the past weekend, just under 20,000 ha of spring wheat were planted, bringing the total up to 70,000 ha as of Monday, or 40% of the planned acreage.

As of a similar point last year, 155,000 ha were already planted of the planned total of 180,000 ha of spring wheat.

Ukraine plans to sow 7.4 million ha of spring crops in 2018, with early crops such as spring barley and spring wheat accounting for 2.4 million ha, with the rest planted with later crops such as corn and buckwheat.

That compares to the 7.3 million mt of winter crops that are already in the ground, of which 90% is in good to excellent condition, with only 716,000 ha in very poor condition.