The last
twelve months has been busy busy busy; the shortage of blog posts attest to
that. A new baby
due in the new year means I make no promises that my output will increase in
2013 but we'll see.
2012 started cold, very cold even by Ukrainian standards with temperatures
in January falling as low as -35 Celsius and grain markets reacted accordingly.
One of the mysteries to me that is why does a rumour in January about a
crop that can’t be seen under a thick blanket of snow, that won’t be harvested until
August affect the grain price in Chicago?
That thick blanket of insulating snow meant there was no significant additional
winter-kill and crops came out of the winter pretty much in the same condition
as they went in. The rumours were in
fact just that; rumours.
Drought in the autumn had meant germination was patchy and poor looking
wheat and rape going in to the winter still looked poor once the snow melted
but it was all still there.
By the end of February temperatures returned to normal and spring weather
started to arrive in March.
Soils quickly soaked up the melt water and field work started almost immediately
giving some indication how dry the soils had been.
Planting started in April with record hectares of maize going in on the
back of encouragement from the local administration.
Rain and warm temperatures in May saw crops speed through the growth
stages with the first barley crops being cut in Crimea by the end of June.
Harvest was well underway by August with oilseed rape up on last year with
official figures at 2.2mt/ha and wheat down at less than 3.0mt/ha.
New crop rape, wheat and barley started going back in to the ground in
September in to pretty much ideal conditions, moist warm soils and warm weather
encouraged good germination and early plant growth; very different to 2012.
October and an election saw the ruling party retain majority.
The rest of the harvest progressed through the autumn with official figures
currently running at sunflowers 1.6mt/ha; maize 4.7mt/ha; soya 1.7mt/ha.
The wheat export ban came in to force in November then was off then
back on again then no one seemed to know for sure. It was reported that traders and the government agreed that once wheat
exports exceed 5.5mmt a voluntarily restriction would come in to force. At the time of writing export figures run at
5.6mmt.
Winter has arrived two weeks early with snow and sub-zero temperatures
drawing the season to an early close.
In summary 2012 was a reasonable farming year but another difficult
year in which to do business.