Bad weather in late 2005 and early 2006 may kill about 27 percent of Ukraine's winter crops, the Emergencies Ministry said on Wednesday. "The results of tests have showed that about 27 percent of winter crops could die," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the area under crops in poor condition could reach 45 percent in eastern, southern and some central regions.
"Up to 90 percent of Ukrainian land suffered from drought in late 2005 and that caused a late sowing of winter crops," the ministry said.
Drought in late 2005 combined with record frosts in January and February were the main reasons for such high losses. Ukraine loses up to 10 percent of winter crops in normal years.
Agriculture officials gave no 2006 grain crop forecast but have already said the country had to increase its spring grain area this year to offset significant winter losses.
"It is vital to increase the area under spring crops to 9.2 million hectares," Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Melnyk told a government meeting. He gave no structure of the 2006 spring crop area.
In 2005, Ukraine sowed 480,300 hectares to spring wheat, 4.02 million to spring barley, 1.76 million to maize, 470,900 to oats, 330,500 to peas and about 150,000 to other cereals.
Earlier this week, analysts said frosts had destroyed 745,000 hectares of Ukrainian winter grain crops or about 12.3 percent of the area sown to the 2005/2006 winter grain harvest.
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