The Slovak Agricultural and Food Chamber (SPPK) draws attention to the critical situation in the fields, which is caused by extremely drought and devious weather. Farmers also tormented a heavy storm or fire directly in the field. Nevertheless, farmers are doing their best to grow as much quality crop as possible even in these demanding conditions. This was stated by Mária Hvozdíková from the SPPK press department.
She explained that The intensity of soil drought throughout the profile is at the level of significant to extreme drought in almost the whole area of Slovakia. The worst situation is on the Danube Lowland, Záhorie, Ponitrí, Považie, Orava, Hontte, Pohronie, Above and Zemplin. The dryness of the drought captured on the SHMI maps clearly documents extremely drought, comparable to the year 2022, when farmers were compensated by EUR 50 million for significant losses in agricultural production.
„At current temperature extremes, it simply does not work without irrigation. For potato growth, a temperature of up to 25 degrees Celsius is ideal. At a higher temperature, the potato ceases to grow, this is reflected in quality and quantity and this reason is really necessary to cool the growth. Field vegetables, whether it is onion or other, certainly needs irrigation now. Of course, it is always a question of the amount of water we can get in the field. In these locations (Senec district) for example We are dealing with water reservoirs that we would need to explicitly for irrigation”Explained Jozef Šumichrast, chairman of the Potato and Vegetable Association of the Slovak Republic and Vice -Chairman of the SPPK.
The current condition of cereals is satisfactory according to the development of the weather from autumn (especially the precipitation deficit) according to Hvozdík. The stands are in good condition, further development will be very dependent on precipitation in the near future. Harvesting began at the 26th week in the south of western, central and eastern Slovakia by collecting winter barleygradually begins to collect wheat of winter and peas.
Pointed out that Due to very dry soil and high temperatures, it broke out in the afternoon on Thursday (26 June) at the Danube Lowland, where it is currently the hottest, in the district of Levice, a relatively large fire.
The evidence of unstable weather conditions is, according to her, the diversity of weather conditions before harvest. “We document this on the example of the Nitra district, where at the end of the 23rd week in the district of the district persisted, while In another part of the district, there were sharp rains whose possible negative impact can be evaluated until harvesting. At the same time, there were strong rains in the districts of Prešov, Sabinov, where it washed up at the latest sown and the weakest involved crops, especially corn and soy, better condition for crops with a root system involved, such as cereal, oilnín, ”informed Martin Rovoš from SPPK.
Hvozdíková added that Rains have also occurred in other parts of Slovakia, with different surface range and different intensity. An example is the poppy stand on the area of 100 hectares, which has been caught by the soil due to heavy rain and the poppy growth had to be based repeatedly. Another example of non -devious weather is a strong storm, which hit some sites of the district of Nové Mesto nad Váhom on 23 June, where a week before the expected beginning of the harvest, the grain from the ears of grain, destroyed the cereal, oilseed, corn and other crops, including fruit.
