January weather favours Ukrainian winter crops

1/13/2021

KYIV, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Weather conditions in early January were mostly favourable for Ukrainian winter grain crops, state weather forecasters said on Wednesday.

"Threats for winter crops were not observed," forecasters said in a report.

"In the southern regions, due to very warm weather, there was a weak resumption of growth processes on winter crops."

Ukrainian farmers reduced the area under winter wheat to 6.1 million hectares this season from around 6.7 million hectares a year earlier due to drought during the sowing.

Forecasters said the critical freezing temperature for winter wheat is 14-15 Celsius degrees below zero. Cold air is expected to come to Ukraine later this week and night temperatures could fall to -15 degrees in most regions. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Kim Coghill)