KIEV: Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops have survived the strongest cooling of this winter and most of them are in a good or satisfactory condition as of March 3, analyst UkrAgroConsult said on Monday.

Arctic air caused a sharp fall in temperature across almost all Ukrainian regions and temperatures dropped to hit 21-22 Celsius degrees below freezing.

But a significant layer of snow has protected the crops from freezing, the consultancy said. “There is every reason to claim that the overwhelming majority of crops, in particular winter wheat, will overcome the winter season without loss,” UkrAgroConsult said in a report.

It said 86.6 percent of crops were in a good or satisfactory condition, compared to 80.8 percent last year. Some 13.4 percent of this year’s crop was in a poor state, the report added.

Ukraine sowed 7.3 million hectares with winter grains, including 6.3 million hectares of wheat, 813,000 hectares of barley and 150,000 hectares of rye.

UkrAgroConsult has said that Ukraine’s 2018 grain harvest was likely to decline by 2 percent from a year ago to 61.1 million tonnes because of a smaller wheat crop.—Reuters