Romania’s wheat output increased this year by 7 percent compared to 2015 to 8.413 million tons, recording an average of more than four tons per hectare, while the rape production reached 1.266 million tons, Achim Irimescu, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development stated for agerpres.ro.
This year 2.075 million hectares of wheat and rye were cultivated and yielded an average output of 4.054 kg per hectare, meaning a total of 8.41 million tons of wheat, compared to 7.85 million tons in 2015.
Overcoming the threshold of four tons of wheat per hectare is a first for Romania in the last 10 years, while the highest average productions were achieved last year, ie 3.84 tons per hectare, 3.68 tons per hectare in 2011, 3.58 tons per hectare in 2014, 3.40 tons per hectare in 2008.
Last year, Romania has harvested 7.851 million tons of wheat, with a yield of 3.84 tons per hectare, from a total area of 2.043 million hectares.
Irimescu said that for the sunflower crop is estimated a total production of 1.7 million tons for 2016 with a yield of about 1730 kg / ha, because the crop was not so heavily affected by drought as for maize where “it’s a big problem”.
According to Irimescu, Dobrogea and Northern Moldavia are strongly affected by drought, and by this time minister data show that an area of 350,000 hectares are under calamity to varying degrees, from 30 percent to 70 percent.