Russian wheat harvest at 68.4m mt, yields drop for second week

Russia took its wheat harvest to 68.4 million mt in the week to August 25, with 19.2 million ha or 65.3% of the projected area now harvested, while yields were down for the second week, data from the Russian agricultural ministry showed Wednesday.

The wheat harvest progressed 5.8 points week-on-week, while average yields fell another 1.9% to 3.56 mt/ha.

Despite the drop in average yields, analytical agencies continued to raise their production forecasts, with IKAR increasing its estimate to 82.5 million mt from 82 million mt at the beginning of the week.

Before that, SovEcon, another private Russian analytical agency, raised its forecast to 81.2 million mt from 80.9 million mt.

The barley harvest also advanced 11.4 points over the same week reaching 16.7 million mt from 5.7 million ha or 67% of the projected area.

Barley yields were down for the fourth consecutive week, falling another 2% compared with the previous week to 2.94 mt/ha.

Overall, Russian farmers have harvested 92.4 million mt of grains from 28.3 million ha, or 59% of the projected area.

That is up 6.8 points week-on-week, while average yields were down for the third week in a row to 3.26 mt/ha.