Our Man In Romania

20/05/11 -- Here's an update on what's going on in Romania from my eyes and ears man on the ground over there:

Weather seems to be the theme of this week. Essentially Romania has had a very wet in some areas, dry in others, cold (apparently coldest on record for 15 years) spring. Crops were simply not growing on our higher land in the north east as it was plain too cold and too dry and no plants were accessing nitrogen.

Some rainfall in the north of approx 40mm over a 10 day spell fixed that and now its sunny. Crops are now growing at such a rate that growth stages whizz through in hours and certainly a lot faster than our sprayers !!

Crops in general look better in the north than the south. Our wheats in the last few days have started to cheer me up and now range from crap to very good versus previously crap to average. I am hoping the crap will improve. Rape is mixed with half of it really good and half average.

Overall our winter crops look better than last year now albeit they are 2–3 weeks behind.

Most of our sunflower is now in the ground and has emerged well, approx half our corn is in and just emerging. We will finish all seeding in the next 5 days and our spring situation is dramatically better than last year.

Local forecasts show us dry and warm for the next 10 days which should help. Rumours of a dry June and very hot July are around in triplicate but who knows that!