Ukraine reports the lowest levels of soil moisture for the last seven seasons, which raises concerns about yields in 2025. This was warned by the Ukrainian National Agricultural Academy, quoted by "Reuters".
Ukraine - a world producer and exporter of grain - traditionally grows winter crops, the yields of which are highly dependent on moisture in the fall and winter.
"Total precipitation for the period November-January was only 79.6 mm, which was significantly less than the long-term average of 117 mm", noted the consulting company APK-Inform, quoted by the Academy.
It is indicated that over the past seven years, such provision of winter crops with atmospheric moisture has been observed for the first time.
The scientists said that the insufficient amount of precipitation during most of the winter period and very low moisture reserves in the soil "give rise to particular concern for grain producers.".
Most regions of Ukraine remained without rain during and before the autumn sowing, farmers sowed seeds in dry soil in the hope of winter snows.
In October, Ukrainian weather forecasters indicated that most of Ukraine's winter harvest was at risk, as almost all seedlings were underdeveloped.
Farmers have sown 5.24 million hectares of winter cereals for the 2025 harvest, with wheat dominating the area. Winter wheat makes up about 95% of all Ukrainian wheat.
First Deputy Minister of Agriculture Taras Vysotsky said last year that Ukraine's wheat harvest could increase to 25 million tons in 2025 from about 22 million tons in 2024 thanks to a larger sown area and provided the weather is good.