As of December, up to 65% of winter crops are in good to excellent condition, and 30-35% will depend on weather conditions during the winter. Such monitoring data of the Ukrhydrometeorological center was made public by the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, writes agronews.ua.

As noted, the specified indicator is an average for all years.

According to an expert assessment, in Ukraine as a whole, the condition of winter crops was assessed as significantly better compared to the beginning of November last year.

"Crops, even poorly developed (in the seedling phase), of which there are more this autumn, were characterized by uniform development. However, given the phased state of development, the dependence of the future harvest of winter crops on the weather conditions of the winter of 2022-2023 will be very significant," experts believe.

According to the last determination of the level of soil moisture carried out on October 28-30, 2022, the productive moisture reserves of the arable soil layer under winter crops on most of the sown areas were optimal (21-40 mm). In separate areas of the eastern, western and northern regions, the 0-20 cm layer of the soil was overmoistened (more than 40 mm of productive moisture). At the same time, in the southern and in some areas of the central regions, the moistening of the arable layer of the soil was insufficient for the end of autumn (11-20 mm, in places less than 10 mm of productive moisture), the largest number of such areas was in the Odesa region.

Surveys of crops in the second half of November showed that on 30-40% of the areas plants have reached mass tillering, this is the most favorable for overwintering. The formation of the 3rd leaf and steps was noted on the remaining areas.

"According to a visual assessment, on 65% (2021 — 56%) of the examined fields, the plants entered the winter in good to excellent condition, on 28% (2021 — 35%) of the areas, the condition of the plants was assessed as satisfactory. On 7% (9%) of the areas, the plants were poorly developed (they did not reach a phase of development safe for overwintering). The largest number of such crops (from 7 to 28%) are in Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Odesa and Lviv regions. In a number of regions, all crops are only in good condition," meteorologists state.

The conditions for hardening the plants this fall were partially favorable. A similar general state of crops was observed in the fall of 2021. Overwintering of wintering crops has started quite satisfactorily. Since mid-November, snow cover was observed in many regions (western, northern, partly central), and the soil began to freeze. Since the beginning of winter, the lowest air temperatures reached -5-13°С, while the minimum soil temperature at a depth of 3 cm did not fall below -1-5°С, which did not pose a threat to plants.