KYIV: Agricultural markets research firm SovEcon on Monday revised up its forecast for Ukraine’s 2021 wheat crop to a record 28.6 million tonnes from the previous estimate of 27.8 million tonnes and 24.9 million tonnes harvested in 2020.

“Winter wheat conditions improved further in April on ample precipitation, the majority of wheat regions received 100-125% of the norm. Late spring doesn’t seem to have a noticeable negative effect on plants,” it said in a report.

SovEcon said Ukraine might also harvest a record high 36.6 million tonnes of corn this year versus 30.3 million tonnes in 2020.

It said the corn crop forecast was based on an area of 5.3 million hectares and yield of 6.9 tonnes per hectare.

The previous record wheat crop of 28.3 million tonnes was harvested in 2019, while the record corn crop was in 2018 when Ukraine threshed 35.8 million tonnes, SovEcon said.—Reuters