Market Morsel: Russian new crop forecast to increase.
Market Morsel
SovEcon, a leading Black Sea agricultural markets consultancy, upped 2021 Russia’s wheat crop forecast from 76.8 MMT in December to 77.7 MMT on favourable winter conditions.
The weather conditions for a new crop have improved in January. Heavy snowfall in recent weeks is likely to boost moisture reserves, which were abnormally low after dry autumn. Snow cover also provided timely insulation for plants during the recent cold snap in the Black Sea. Temperatures in most regions did not fall to critical levels and will not fall in the coming weeks.
The farmers SovEcon surveyed in January from the main winter wheat regions rated winter weather conditions as generally average or slightly better than average.However, overall 2021 wheat crop conditions remain far from ideal.
Plants entered the winter in the worst shape for ten years due to lack of rains during autumn. According to Russia’s state weather service Hydrometeocenter, 22% of winter grain crops were in poor condition in late November, compared to 4% in the previous year. Typically the end of winter (late February – early March) possess the highest risk of winter-kill for wheat.
In 2020, Russia, #1 world wheat exporter, harvested 85.9 MMT of wheat (85.3 MMT ex Crimea).
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