Sown areas under winter crops in Ukraine reach 2.78m ha, 58.4% of plan

Sowing of winter grains in Ukraine is 2.78 million ha or 58.4% complete in the week to October 17, showing progress of 20.4 percentage points compared to last week, according to official government data released Tuesday.

Prolonged rain in a number of regions of Ukraine, as well as waterlogging of the soil, caused a delay in the sowing campaign.

Despite bad weather and continued missile attacks from Russia, Ukrainian farmers managed to sow winter wheat on 2.44 million ha, or 61.4% of the planned area.

Winter wheat sowing advanced by 20.4 percentage points on last week.

Winter barley is sown on 265,000 ha or 39.2% of the projected area, indicating an advance of 16.2 percentage points on last week.

Sowing of winter rapeseed increased by 0.6 percentage points and reached 998,910 ha or 103.6% of the planned area.

However, this is still 14% less than the area planted last year, while Ukraine usually plants all its rapeseed crops before winter.

The data presented does not take into account the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Lugansk, and Kherson regions.