Wheat

Only 20% of winter grain crops to survive winter, says weather center

Only 20% of Ukraine’s winter grain crops will survive the winter, according to Tetiana Adamenko, the head of the agrarian meteorology department at the Ukrainian Weather Center.

“According to the tentative data of the weather center, around 20% of the winter grain crops are in a good state, well-developed and are ready to hibernate, while usually on this date, around 60-70% of crops should be in a good state,” she told Interfax-Ukraine.

Adamenko said that the long drought that started in the middle of summer sharply had changed to cold weather, which did not allow plants to develop enough for hibernation. At present, winter temperatures are coming to Ukraine, and it is not expected that it will again be warm enough for the situation with the development of the winter crops to change.

“Even in Crimea there is a lack of warmth… and 50% of crops will not sprout due to a lack of warmth,” she added.

She said that the better situation was seen in western regions of the country, which are under influence of European meteorological processes. However, even in Khmelnytsky, Rivne and Ternopil regions, where winter crops as usual were good enough for hibernation, winter crops are in various phases of their development, the expert said.

Adamenko said that on November 8, minus 15 degrees centigrade were registered in the east of Ukraine, which is a very rapid fall for November.

“I’m afraid that winter crops could be killed by frost in the first half of winter,” she said.

Adamenko said that the largest risk of being killed by frost exists in early winter, when plants are weak.

“We can be sure that 20% of the developed winter crops will survive winter, and the survival of other crops will depend on the weather, while there is no exact forecast for winter,” she said.

Northern Hemisphere Wheat Prices.

Here is a plot of the Northern Hemisphere winter wheat prices. The US plot is for hard red winter wheat. The Canada plot is for soft red spring wheat. Prices are in metric tons.

All data is from the USDA Wheat Year Book Tables. The Canada data (May) lags the US data (June) by several months.  The red dots represent the last monthly figures in the year book.  The 2011 trend line represents the average price so far this year. I will be updating the red dots each month, with an unfilled symbol to represent the previous month.  That way we can see the direction that prices are changing month to month.

As I look at the chart, I wonder if climate change has already influenced the price of wheat. I will be examining this thought in a future post on this page. Stay tuned.