Crop monitoring in Europe - MARS Bulletin Vol. 23 No 10 (2015) - Difficult start for winter crops in Eastern and Northern Europe

摘要

Yield forecasts for summer crops at EU-28 level remain lowand are comparable to last month’s forecast. September waswarmer than usual in northern, eastern and south-easternEurope and colder than usual in western Europe. Octoberhas generally been colder than usual so far, especially duringthe second dekad, when negative minimum temperaturesoccurred in many areas of central and eastern Europe. Wetterthan-usual conditions were recorded in south-eastern Europe,south-eastern France, central and southern Italy, northernGermany and several parts of northern Europe. Large areas insouth-eastern Europe faced a period of abundant rains slowingdown the harvesting activities of maize and sunflower andhampering the sowing of winter crops. Dry conditions havepersisted in Poland, Lithuania, western Ukraine and southernRussia. In these regions, the winter crops sown in Septembergerminated under unfavourable conditions which furtherworsened due to the low temperatures that occurred inOctober. The sowing of winter cereals has progressed withoutmajor problems in the EU’s largest producing states, France,Germany and the UK.