Crop Production in the Spring Wheat Region of the Former Soviet Union

The spring wheat zone of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) stretches eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Russian Far East. The main production zone within this enormous area lies within the Urals region and Western Siberia in Russia and north-central Kazakstan. This region, called the New Lands or Virgin Lands, includes vast tracts of land first put to the plow under Chairman Nikita Krushchev's ambitious agricultural expansion program of the 1950's. Roughly 80 percent of FSU spring wheat is produced in the New Lands, and an additional 10 percent in Eastern Siberia and the Far East. (See Regional and oblast boundary maps.) Like Ukraine and southern Russia, the prime spring wheat production region lies within the chernozem ("black soils") belt, where soils are inherently fertile and very suitable for agriculture. Despite the rich soils, however, the New Lands remain risky for agriculture because of meager rainfall. Average annual precipitation in northern Kazakstan, for example, is only about 20 inches -- barely enough to support a wheat crop. Irrigation is seldom used on grain crops in the spring wheat region.

As its name implies, roughly half of the grain area in the spring wheat region is sown to spring wheat. Spring barley and oats are the other major grains. Relatively few winter grains, oilseeds, or sugar beets are grown in the eastern FSU. (View chart showing regional breakdown of sown area of major crops in Russia.)

Farms in the FSU employ a limited variety of crop rotations, usually featuring two consecutive years of wheat, one year of spring barley, one year of oats, and one year of "clean fallow," during which no crop is sown. A seven-year rotation would likely include an additional year of wheat and an additional year of barley or oats. Some rotations may incorporate four consecutive years of wheat. The length and sequence of the rotation may vary, but the selection of crops is fairly limited. Some researchers question the value of including a fallow slot in the rotation. Most farm directors continue to include a fallow year, however, claiming that the subsequent wheat crop benefits from increased subsurface moisture.

Spring grain planting typically begins in May. Of the spring grains, oats are sown first, followed by wheat, then barley. Planting is concluded by June. The crop advances through the reproductive stage during mid-July, when temperatures climb to their highest levels and grains are most vulnerable to heat stress. Barley is the first of the major grains to be harvested. Harvest begins in late August and continues through October. In the more eastern areas, it is not unusual for a significant portion of the grain crop--millions of hectares in some years--to be lost due to the the combination of late harvest and early snow.

In years of high June and July precipitation (which can result in late tillering and uneven maturity) or when yield potential is high, farmers often use a two-stage harvest method. Grains are first cut, without being threshed, and left to dry in windrows for several days or longer. This enables the less ripe grain to dry somewhat prior to threshing. After drying in the windrows, the combine makes a second trip over the field and the grain is threshed. Some producers suggest that two-stage harvesting also results in less grain loss induced by shattering. Two-stage harvesting has become less popular in recent years, however, due chiefly to the high cost of fuel.

Huge State-owned farms dominate grain production in the spring-wheat region. In Kazakstan, for example, it is not unusual for a farm to cover 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres), with individual fields measuring 400 hectares (1,000 acres). By comparison, the average size of a farm in the winter-grain region is roughly 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres).

(View current estimates of area, yield, and production of grains in the FSU.)

For more information, contact Mark Lindeman with the Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division on (202) 690-0143.