The Russians Are At It Again - Current Grain Crop Well Understated
Following the lead from their cheeky Ukrainian neighbours Russia said Tuesday that their grain harvest was 65% complete at 84mmt, and that they expect this season's total output to be 95mmt, up 13mmt from 2007's 82mmt.
No stranger to subterfuge, the Russians only recently upped their 2008 output estimate up from 85mmt, a figure they have now virtually achieved with a third of the crop still to harvest!
Now you may recall that the Ukraine all the way through the growing season were consistently putting out substantially lower production forecasts than they in fact delivered.
It seems that Russia must have got their calculators from the same shop.
84mmt off 65% of your acreage gives you a final output of 129mmt not 95mmt. OK I'm assuming here that all the best land hasn't been harvested first and that yields on the remaining 35% will come in similar to those already harvested.
What I can tell you though is that for the Russian crop to "only" be 95mmt then the remaining 35% of unharvested land would have to yield just 1.5mt/hectare compared to the average so far this harvest of 2.79mt/hectare. Seems unlikely doesn't it?
The final Russian harvest looks like being well in excess of 100mmt you mark my words.
No stranger to subterfuge, the Russians only recently upped their 2008 output estimate up from 85mmt, a figure they have now virtually achieved with a third of the crop still to harvest!
Now you may recall that the Ukraine all the way through the growing season were consistently putting out substantially lower production forecasts than they in fact delivered.
It seems that Russia must have got their calculators from the same shop.
84mmt off 65% of your acreage gives you a final output of 129mmt not 95mmt. OK I'm assuming here that all the best land hasn't been harvested first and that yields on the remaining 35% will come in similar to those already harvested.
What I can tell you though is that for the Russian crop to "only" be 95mmt then the remaining 35% of unharvested land would have to yield just 1.5mt/hectare compared to the average so far this harvest of 2.79mt/hectare. Seems unlikely doesn't it?
The final Russian harvest looks like being well in excess of 100mmt you mark my words.
