During several recent years, the Ukrainian market of high-oleic sunflower seed demonstrated the positive dynamics of development, with annually increasing the planted areas under the oilseed, and its share in the general planted areas of all types of sunflower seed, the oilseed analyst at APK-Inform Agency Julia Ivanitskaya declared.
According to APK-Inform estimations, in 2016/2017 MY Ukraine will plant high-oleic sunflower seed throughout 260 thousand ha, up by 90 thousand ha (or by 53%) YoY. In the general structure of sunflower seed planted areas in the season-2016/2017, the share of high-oleic crop will increase to 4.3%, against 3.3% in the previous season, the analyst said.
Ivanitskaya specified that taking into account the reporting planted areas, the expected harvest of the oilseed was estimated at 630 thousand tons. However, traders usually consider nearly 20-30% of the harvest volumes to traditional sunflower seed due to its noncompliance with severe requirements for high-oleic sunflower.
The oleic acid content is its main criterion, which should vary at the level of 82-84%. Low-quality seeds or its mixing with traditional sunflower, adverse soil and climatic conditions, non-compliance with the oilseed cultivation technology and some other reasons can somewhat reduce the reporting index. Therefore, APK-Inform forecasts the harvest of high-oleic sunflower in Ukraine in 2016/2017 MY at 473 thousand tons (up by 50% compared with last season), the expert explained. (APK-Inform/Business World Magazine)