The cold spring of 25th jeopardized the sowing campaign

As a year ago, May frosts significantly affected the forecasts of our future harvest. Thus, in Crimea, about 20% of stone fruits perished: peaches, cherries and plums. This was announced by the peninsula's agricultural ministry. Weather anomalies also affected a number of regions in the south and center of Russia; in the fall, we may not have enough sugar.

In short, we can only dream of peace. Due to the May cold, optimal sowing dates are shifting in some regions.

With stone fruit crops, everything is clear. Not only Crimea, but also gardeners in the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions may lose up to 30% of their fruit harvest. Cherries, apricots and peaches began to bloom at the very moment when spring frosts hit.

Most likely, we are not talking about high prices for stone fruits - this is self-evident. Today, domestic peaches are offered in supermarkets for 430-480 rubles per kilogram, Turkish ones - for 790. What will happen to the new harvest? We traditionally buy apricots, peaches and cherries in large quantities by import. Two or three years ago, Russia was considered the largest importer of peaches in the world.

We produced about 50 thousand tons on our own, and imported up to 300 thousand tons from Turkey, Serbia, and Moldova.

However, even in those regions there were spring cataclysms, in particular, in Turkey frosts reached minus 15 degrees!

The situation with apricots is slightly better: we import about 85 thousand tons, the same amount as we grow in our own gardens.

But losses also need to be calculated in field crop production.

Sugar beet was sown on an area of ​​slightly more than one million hectares this spring. May frosts affected 12%, more than 120 thousand hectares. Including 75 thousand in the Belgorod and Lipetsk regions. 2.5 thousand hectares of crops perished in the Kursk region, the government of the Voronezh region reports "damage" to 30 thousand hectares of spring and winter sowing.

The Governor of the Belgorod Region has declared a state of emergency in the region: during the period of active crop growth, serious frosts were recorded in the air and on the soil surface…

What can we expect from the vagaries of the weather and can farmers be blamed for possible crop losses?

It's a philosophical question.

In the current conditions, even experienced farmers are at a loss, they do not know how to resist the elements. The fact is that in the last decade, scientists predicted global warming and called on us all to create such varieties of agricultural crops that would be able to survive any droughts and dry winds. But now it turns out that perhaps we are expecting a global cooling. And we need to work on frost-resistant varieties.

Is such work being carried out in Russia? We asked agricultural analyst Alexander Korbut about this.

- The situation is complicated, - he believes. - Usually, weather forecasters take long-term series and make recommendations for farmers to follow. But the past and current years fall outside this climate series. We have not seen such May frosts in terms of duration and temperatures for more than 100 years. This is a unique phenomenon. I do not know if there are any similar weather anomalies in the world, like in Russia.

- Is work being carried out on frost-resistant varieties of agricultural crops?

- There are such studies, but it is a long process, especially when it comes to fruit crops. To grow from a seed and see what happens, it takes much more time than, say, from a grain.

- Is the agricultural plan expecting a difficult year?

- In field crop production it is always tense. No frosts – there is drought. No drought – flooding… Farmers are constantly in this mode, each time it is different. In such a situation, great skill of an agronomist is required.

- What's happening with the sugar beet crops?

- This is a spring crop. In some regions it was sown in April, when it was hot and the soil needed to retain moisture. But then the May frosts hit, and part of the area perished. We will re-sow.

- Are there resources for this? Money, seeds? They seem to be mostly imported, don't they?

- Yes, but if there had been the same seeds that were used in the Soviet Union, the result would have been the same.

There is money for reseeding areas of this crop. It is very profitable, all industrial processing is in the hands of large holdings, they also own a significant part of the areas for sugar beet. From the wholesale trade of sugar they have funds for additional work.

We'll cope, this has happened with sugar beets.

- In your opinion, where are the biggest risks in growing crops? Where should all efforts be directed to save?

- I can't say that it would be completely critical. In some regions, a state of emergency has been declared, and in others, everything is fine. We'll survive, it's not the first time...