OREANDA-NEWS. April 14, 2016. Oleksii Pavlenko, the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, reported that the sowing of early grain crops had been fulfilled in the area of 2.1 million hectares, or 86% of the forecast.

“The largest area planted is Dnipropetrovsk region – 203.8 thousand hectares (81% of the forecast), Zaporizhzhya region – 180.2 thousand hectares (90%), Kherson region – 145.8 thousand hectares (84%), Odesa region – 138.2 thousand hectares (101%), and Mykolaiv region – 135.0 thousand hectares (91%)”, the Minister noted.

Additionally, the industrial crops have also been sown, namely: sugar beets – in the territory of 216 thousand hectares or 81% of the forecast, sunflowers – 805 thousand hectares or 16%, and the planting of corn and soy has recently begun – 254 thousand hectares or 6% and 34 thousand hectares or 2%, accordingly.

Speaking of the crop condition, the Minister noted that winter grain crops had germinated in the area of 7.0 million hectares out of 7.1 million hectares of the sown territory (98%). Moreover, 5.4 million hectares of sown land (77%) is in good and satisfactory condition.

“We are completing the additional fertilizing of winter grain crops. Agrarian enterprises of 12 regions have already finished the initial fertilizing in the whole projected area. According to the forecast, as of today, only 3% of the projected areas have not been fertilized”, the Minister added.