Cool and rainy weather in the first half of May has slowed spring grain sowing in Russia. SovEcon has revised its forecast for Russia's spring grain area slightly downwards to a range of 30.65-31.15 million hectares, compared with 32.1 million hectares in 2006.
Despite the decline in the spring grain area, Russia's total grain area is seen slightly above last year's 43.4 million hectares due to a sharp drop in winterkill losses. SovEcon's forecast for Russia's total grain production in 2007 remains unchanged at 78 million-81 million tones against 78.6 million tones last year. Unusually warm weather in March enabled farmers in southern regions to start sowing than normal.
But prolonged cold weather, with rains in late April and the first half of May, has slowed progress. By May 15, spring grain plantings at large and medium farms had reached 10.24 million hectares.
This is historically low and nearly 2.9 million hectares behind last year's record pace. The Volga river regions (particularly Bashkortostan and Tatarstan) and the URLs (Orenburg) are the main areas where sowing has slowed.
This slowdown is likely to result in a decrease in the spring barley area, which may lead to reduce barley output in 2007. In contrast to these regions, large-scale sowing in Siberia.