The July weather in the Middle Urals this year beat not only temperature records, but was also marked by a long period of complete absence of precipitation. In some areas of the region, not a drop fell in twenty days. This situation had a negative impact on agriculture.
Many in the countryside reluctantly recall 2010, when the agriculture of the region was badly hit by drought, and the lack of fodder brought dairy farming to the brink of survival. Could the drought of ten years ago be repeated?
“This year the situation is much better than that,” says Mikhail Kopytov, chairman of the non-profit partnership “Union of Livestock Breeders of the Urals”. - But all the same, the heat and lack of rain will affect the yield of grain and forage crops. In many farms, especially in those where there is no carry-over stock of fodder, they will be scarce in winter.
The drought occurred during the period of spike filling in cereals and the formation of tubers in potatoes. The lack of moisture had a negative impact on the processes of laying the future harvest. Many farmers are already predicting large losses.
- There is no moisture, and the grain is weak. Because of this, the shortfall in grain harvests can be from 30 to 50 percent, says Anatoly Zhigalov, a farmer from the Bogdanovichi urban district. “But potatoes and vegetables will suffer the most. The potatoes have already started dropping future tubers in the upper stolon level. Nothing will make up for these losses, even if it rains tomorrow.
Farmers are also watching the situation in the forage field with alarm. The heat helped them to quickly take the first cut on perennial grasses - clover, alfalfa. But it does not allow the green mass of these crops to grow for subsequent mowing, interferes with the formation of young plants in the fields, where the grass stand will be formed only the next year. Now the main hope of the villagers is heavy rains.
