Russia’s wheat harvest hits 73.6 million mt: ministry

Russia’s wheat harvest hit 73.6 million mt as the spring harvest continued to make progress, picking up pace last week as favourable weather helped farmers as they near the final stages of this year’s campaign.

The total wheat harvest progressed 8.3 percentage points to 73.6% of the projected area in the week to September 1, data from the agriculture ministry showed Wednesday.

The pace of the harvest picked up over the week as rains in parts of the Urals and Siberia eased.

Average yields continued to fall last week as the harvest entered less productive regions in its closing stages, falling 4.5% week-on-week to 3.4 mt/ha

Russia farmers have harvested wheat from 21.7 million ha or 73.6% from the projected area, with average yields dipping 4.5% week-on-week to 3.4 mt/ha.

Russia is expected to produce 78 million mt of wheat in the 2020/21 marketing year, according to USDA forecasts.

A conservative figure compared to some other forecasts, the USDA does not include output from Crimea, which some other analysts do.

The barley harvest progressed 11 points week-on-week to 78% of the projected area, with 18.9 million mt in the bins from 6.6 million ha.

Average yields for barley continued to decline, falling 3.4% week-on-week to 2.84 mt/ha.

Barley production is forecast at 17.3 million mt by the USDA.

Farmers have started this year’s corn harvest and have gathered 63,400 mt from 16,300 ha or 0.6% of the projected area, with yields at 3.89 mt/ha.

Corn production is forecast at 15.3 million mt by the USDA.

The sunflower harvest hit 4% of the forecast area, equivalent to 338,400 ha, with 514,300 mt gathered with a yield at 1.52 mt/ha.

Rapeseed has been harvested from 526,800 ha, which is 35.3% of the planted area, with1.2 million mt gathered with a 2.25 mt/ha yield. 

The soybean harvest is at 3.5% of the planted area, gathered from a total of 99,700 ha, and producing 171,500 mt with a yield at 1.72 mt/ha. 

The total grain harvest was up 8.4 points week-on-week to 67.4% of the planted area, with average yields down 4% to 3.13 mt/ha from 32.4 million ha.

The total grain harvest is 101.3 million mt to date.

Winter crop sowing was said to be up 11 points week-on-week to 19% of the projected area, equivalent to 3.5 million ha.