Grodno oblast reports highest rape seed productivity in Belarus

Farms of Grodno oblast have achieved the highest productivity of winter rape in Belarus – 21 centners per hectare, while the average crop yield in other Belarusian regions is 15.5 centners per hectare. The second high rape productivity is registered in Brest oblast – 18.9 centners per hectare, BelTA learnt in the Department for Plant Cultivation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs. This year’s rape harvest is expected to be record high in the last five years. At the least 200,000 tons of rape seeds are planned to be harvested and 230,000-240,000 tons at the utmost. The total grain yield has already reached 72,000 tons. Brest, Gomel and Grodno oblasts account for greater shares of yield with 29,000, 15,000 and 10,000 tons collected respectively. Collected rape seeds are sent to Vitebsk Oil Extraction Plant and other processing companies. A total of 46,500 hectares sown with winter rape has been harvested in Belarus. This makes up 28.6% of the total area. Agricultural producers of the Gomel and Brest oblast have reaped 62.5% and 53.4% of the areas respectively. Rains did not allow the agricultural producers of the Vitebsk oblast to gain pace. Nevertheless they harvested 28.5% of the areas under this crop. The Minsk and Grodno oblast harvested 17.5% and 17.3%, the Mogilev oblast – 12%. More and more companies in Belarus choose to cultivate rape. In the Minsk oblast the areas under this crops increase more than 10 times as the rape schrot which is rich in protein can be used as forage. This year the state winter rape procurement order stands at 137,5 thousand tons, or 1,5 times up from last year. Some 50 thousand tons will be processed by the Vitebsk solvent-extraction plant, the rest by regional companies.