Republic
26.06.2007
According to the preliminary data, in Belarus about 3 thousand hectares of flax crops were hit by the hot weather, BelTA learnt from Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Foodstuffs Vasily Pavlovsky.
According to him, the crops in the five regions of the Grodno oblast, Lida, Smorgon, Ivje, Dyatlovo and Voronovo, suffered the most. At the same time these regions have the highest crop capacity. There are some damaged fields in the Rogachev region of the Gomel oblast and the Berezino and Luban regions of the Minsk oblast. All in all, about 1.4 thousand hectares of flax crops have been lost; 1.3 thousand hectares of flax crops - damaged.
The flax is undersized because of hot weather. The height of the flax stalks in many fields reaches 60cm what means that agricultural companies will receive more short flax fiber.
In the Vitebsk oblast, the main region of the flax production, about 270 hectares of flax crops were hit by hail. However, there are some fields which can yield a good harvest. In the Grodno, Minsk and Mogilev oblasts the situation can be improved as there have been rains recently.
This year agricultural companies have used an integrated highly efficient system to protect flax from weeds, diseases and vermin. Today flax producing companies of the country add nitric fertilizer to feed the flax crops which have wilted. As of today, one fourth of the flax crops have been fertilised already.
This year Belarusian agricultural companies intend to harvest about 60 thousand tonnes of flax.