Wheat yield, export at risk in Russia's South

Poor autumn and winter crop conditions in Russia's key southern wheat export regions have threatened yields and could reduce Russia's export potential in the coming crop year, a top Russian grain analyst said on Thursday. Unusually warm temperatures in December and early January gave way to a fierce cold snap which hit crops in Russia's southern breadbasket, parts of which lacked snow to protect the green shoots.
Poor germination was also reported in some areas. Russia is ending the current crop year with low stocks and relatively heavy winter wheat losses in its key southern export regions, in sharp contrast to the high stocks and healthy crops which set it up for a season of record exports.
Exports from the start of the crop year on July 1, when Russia lifted an export ban imposed during a catastrophic drought which killed more than a third of the 2010/11 crop, stand at a record 21.5 million tonnes, of which over 17 million tonnes is wheat.
The regions closest to Russia's Black Sea export outlets are likely run out of wheat quickly this year, forcing exporters to go north in search of export volumes, when they will run into transport bottlenecks, the head of the SovEcon agricultural consultancy said.
"Exports will be lower and all these logistic problems will be just as difficult as they have been this year because the south could fulfil its export potential in the first months of the year," Andrei Sizov Sr. told a private conference of traders and producers. "It will require shipments from other regions sooner in the season which will be a trial for grain transport logistics." SovEcon expects wheat exports to total 20.3 million tonnes by June 30, the end of the current crop year.
The total winter wheat crop is not expected to decline significantly, Sizov said, forecasting a 34 million tonne harvest, just slightly down from this year's 34.7 million tonne harvest, because yields are expected to improve in other regions with lower productivity and smaller overall harvests.
SovEcon estimates showed around four percent of winter plantings damaged in Krasnodar, the largest of Russia's Black Sea farm regions, more than double multi-year averages. In the neighbouring Stavropol region, estimated losses stood at 7 percent, compared to a multi-year average of 1.9 percent and more than 10 times the 2011/12 level. "We still have snow on the ground but the analysts say our wheat is still alive. There is a lot of concern about the rapeseed and barley," said one Stavropol producer present at the conference.