Despite the fact that last year farmers of the steppe zone were able to harvest only 76% of winter wheat with an average yield of only 18.9 centners per hectare, the area for the next harvest in the region has not decreased, but even partially increased to 3.55 million hectares, the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club told UKRINFORM.

"The Ukrainian steppe has always been an important region in terms of growing winter wheat. During 2007-2011, an average of 45% of wheat in Ukraine was harvested exactly in the steppe zone. At the same time, last year, when the above-mentioned figure was only 32%, again demonstrated that, with a constant growth of weather risks, farmers should always be armed with advanced technologies, such as minimal tillage, the use of dead-standing selection and others, that will allow maximum leveling of the negative impact of extreme weather events," Taras Vysotsky, an agricultural market expert at the agribusiness club, said.

Of course, to find an optimal set of technologies for each individual farm, it is necessary to discuss them and share experiences with other farmers and experts in this field. It is good that, opportunities for such discussions have been created, including a seminar on investment in 2013 spring crops, which will be held at the annual exhibition Agroprom-2013 in Dnipropetrovsk on February 20," Vysotsky commented.

According to him, last year, most of all winter wheat was lost in Kherson region, where it was possible to harvest only 46% of the sown areas. Then those were Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions, where grain was harvested, respectively, on 68%, 70% and 74% of the acreage.

"In all of the abovesaid regions, except Kherson, areas under 2013 winter wheat increased compared to those under the 2012 harvest, with the highest increase in Mykolaiv region (16%). The only region of the steppe zone, where the crop area under 2013 winter wheat is equal to last year's is the Crimea," the analyst informed.

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