Tuesday, 23 February 2016

Ukraine's Zhytomyr winter crops in good condition

Ukraine’s Minister of Agriculture, Oleksiy Pavlenko, has been on a working visit to Zhytomyr where he discussed the state of the winter crops.

Given this was an official ministerial visit it’s perhaps unsurprising that 100% of planted crop was reported as having emerged with 94% in good or satisfactory condition and only 6% in poor condition.

The minister responded by saying this was a good performance given the prolonged drought and late planting season which indeed it is, if it as actually the case.

It was also reported that 91% of the seeds for spring had been secured along with 67% of fertiliser (which is now being applied, too early in my opinion) and 48% of the plant protection products.

The minister went on to say that these figures suggested the satisfactory state and readiness of farms for spring field work.

Worth mentioning that Zhytomyr translates as rye-world which gives you some idea of what crops grow best there.  

Actually to be fair, south of the oblast is very good farm land but there is a lot of light, free draining land with low rainfall that would suit dry land min-till farming plus it's proximity to Kiev means carrots might do well there.

There you go, a free business plan, min-till wheat, oilseed rape, carrot, parsnip rotation, sell the grains off the combine, wash, grade and pre-pack the roots retail in Kiev, boom.