Ausrys Macijauskas, president of the Association of Lithuanian Grain Growers, says harvest time has come a week earlier this year, and the wheat harvest will start two weeks earlier.
"Winter barley has already been threshed, and now rape threshing is taking place. (…) Rape harvest started around a week earlier than usual, and that of wheat could start some two weeks earlier than usual. Farmers will immediately start threshing wheat after finishing threshing rape. It used to be a break of a week or two earlier, and now there's none," he told BNS Lithuania.
"Winter barley matured really early. And it surprised that winter barley matured in the middle of July. I don't remember such a thing over my 20 years of farming," he said.
According to Macijauskas, there's no reason to rejoice yet as the recent drought-affected crops. And he estimates that this year's crops will be slightly bigger than last year but "definitely below the average of the past five years."
The Lithuanian Institute of Agrarian Economics estimates that crops will be almost a fifth higher this year as it will stand at 5.127 million tons, up 17.1 percent from 4.379 million tons last year.