Winter wheat yield in the western regions may drop by 15-20% due to weather conditions

This year's winter wheat harvest in the western regions will be much lower compared to last year. Depending on the sowing dates, losses may reach 15 to 20% of the yield.

This was stated in a comment to SuperAgronom.com by Mykola Yuskiv, Wholesale Trade Director of the Ternopil Regional Office of LNZ Group, during the Nove Zerniatko 2026 forum. The first obstacle to obtaining high yields was the late sowing of the winter crop, the specialist says.

"Late sowing due to the late harvesting of corn and sunflower... There was no moisture, so the wheat mostly entered winter poorly developed, or did not sprout at all. Then there were severe frosts that caused the deep soil layers to freeze. There was a lot of snow, but the earlier severe frosts caused the soil to freeze and created a barrier to moisture. In effect, all the snow ran off into the ravines. And the rapid warming prevented the snow from moving into the lower soil layers. Because of this we had dry conditions that did not allow the plant to tiller normally," he explained.

Spring drought and swings between day and night temperatures stressed the plants and negatively affected the uptake of the nutrients that farmers had applied. "Farmers tried to solve this problem by applying microelements and anti-stress agents as a foliar treatment, since applying anything to the soil was impractical. The top layer was completely dry," Mykola Yuskiv added.

Source: superagronom.com