Agriculture
Producers intend planting much more maize this year─── SABRINA DEAN 15:02 Thu, 27 Oct 2016
Bloemfontein - Maize producers are planning to plant nearly 27% more than last year, with the area planted with white maize predicted to increase by more than 43%.
This was revealed in the first intentions to plant estimate released by the Crop Estimates Committee (CEC) this week.
The CEC says commercial producers intend to plant 2,46 million hectares of maize, up from 1,94 million hectares the previous season. Of this, about 1,4 million hectares will be white maize and just over one million hectares will be yellow maize.
Sunflower plantings are at this stage expected to decline by nearly 7%, with sorghum down 21% and dry beans down about 4%.
The area planted to groundnuts is expected to increase by nearly 50% for a total of 33 500 hectares.
According to the latest Grain SA agricultural production conditions report, producers in the eastern parts of the country are already going full steam ahead with maize plantings. Some small-scale plantings have also commenced in the western regions.
Grain SA says soil moisture conditions are generally much better than a year ago.
The full CEC report can be downloaded here:
The latest Grain SA agricultural production conditions report is available here:
20161026 Grain SA production conditions.jpg
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