Ag Weather Forum

If I may toss out a Broadway-related line---recent rain in Ukraine echoes U.S. spring 2013 pain.

My apologies--but Ukraine has had some of the same weather-makers for that country's wheat planting and row crop harvest that we saw in the Corn Belt back in May--heavy rain and cool temperatures. A Dow Jones newswire article by reporter Grigori Gerenstein offered this summary:

"MOSCOW--Heavy rains have slowed Ukraine's winter grains planting for the 2014 harvest, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry said Ukraine planted winter grains on 5.99 million hectares to Oct. 14, which is 73% of the planned total area. Winter wheat was planted on 5.097 million hectares or 76% of the planned total winter wheat planted area. Winter barley was planted on 676,800 hectares or 56% of the planned total area. Winter rye was planted on 216,200 hectares or 72% of the planned total winter rye planted area.

The ministry said by the same date last year winter grains had been planted on 7.192 million hectares including 6.172 million hectares of winter wheat, 721,000 hectares of winter barley and 298,000 hectares of winter rye."

That's a pretty big setback in progress, and there is some speculation that Ukraine will see a reduction in winter wheat acreage because of these fall rains. And the cause for these issues is one that we have seen on this side of the globe before--high latitude high pressure blocking. Here's how my colleague Joel Burgio summarizes this feature:

"There had been high latitude blocking over northwest Russia during the middle to late part of September and very early in October. This led to a persistent upper level low over Ukraine and south Russia that became fairly strong for a time. Rains early on in this period were followed by well below normal temperatures that lasted for awhile."

Conditions have turned better for the region, as Joel notes.

"The pattern has changed since the early part of October. Drier weather and a more variable temperatures pattern have been the pattern for more than a week now. This has helped improve conditions for fall field work. The forecast does include the chance for some cooler and a little wetter weather but nothing comparable to what was the case during September and it doesn’t last long."

So, there have been some delays in Ukraine--and possibly some lowering of wheat acreage for next year. But, it's not a season-long calamity apparently.

Bryce

Twitter @BAndersonDTN

(CZ/ES)