By Rudy Ruitenberg
Ukraine, Hungary and Romania, faced with dry weather that is hurting crop conditions, are unlikely to get relief next week as rain will remain scarce through Nov. 16, the European Union’s crop-monitoring unit forecast.
Hungary and western Romania face dry weather, while rain will be “very scarce” in Ukraine and western Russia, the EU’s Monitoring Agricultural Resources unit said in a report on its website today. Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic will also get little precipitation, it said.
Ukraine’s winter-grain harvest may be damaged by drought, with 20 percent in a condition to survive winter, compared with the normal average of 75 percent at this time of year, the country’s national weather center reported yesterday.
“Due to the long-lasting water deficit since mid-August, soils are dry in Hungary, Romania, Moldavia and Ukraine, causing problems in field preparation, sowing works and beyond that postponing or hampering the emergence of winter cereals,” the EU crops unit, known as MARS, said in the report.
Mild and humid conditions would be “desirable” in November to strengthen winter crops, the EU crops unit said.
By contrast, rain forecast in France, Spainand the U.K. will benefit winter grains that have just been sown, according to the crop forecaster.
North African countries including Algeria, the region’s second-largest wheat importer, received unusually high amounts of rain last month, MARS said.
Northern Morocco and Tunisia and northeast Algeria got “very anomalous and ample precipitation” of more than 150 millimeters (5.9 inches) in the Oct. 3 to Nov. 6 period, the EU crop unit said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris atrruitenberg.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter atccarpenter2.
