Dry spring to cut Ukraine 2018 winter grain crops

Ukraine's 2018 winter wheat harvest is likely to fall to 24 million tonnes from 25.4 million tonnes in 2017 due to extremely dry weather this spring which will reduce the yield, the head of the state weather forecasting department said on Thursday.
Tetyana Adamenko told Reuters this year's winter barley crop could total 2.5 million tonnes compared with 3.03 million tonnes in 2017. Winter wheat accounts for around 95 percent5 of Ukraine's total wheat output, while the share of winter barley is around 30 to 40 percent depending of a season. Adamenko said the winter wheat yield was likely to fall to 3.8 tonnes per hectare this year compared with 4.1 tonnes in 2017. The yield of winter barley could fall to 3.1 tonnes from 3.4 tonnes, she said. "The drought in Ukrainian southern regions is the main reason the smaller yield," Adamenko said.