Ukraine in 2013 could harvest around 20 million tonnes of wheat compared to 15.76 million tonnes threshed in 2012, the head of the agro-meteorological department of the Ukrainian Weather Center, Tetiana Adamenko, has said.

"The harvest has been formed for early grain crops. We expect that around 20 million tonnes of wheat, 2-3 million tonnes of rye and barley will be harvested," she told Interfax-Ukraine.

The expert said that this year due to the non-traditional warm second half of spring farmers in southern regions have started harvesting early crops, which is earlier than usual. She said that the mass harvesting of grain would start in a week.

In addition, Adamenko said that at present, late crops are mainly in a good state.

"Today the moisture of soil for later crops is better than it was last year, even in the southern regions, which gives us the grounds to expect a good harvest of corn, sunflower, millet and buckwheat," she said.

Adamenko said that the state of crops could worsen due to the high temperatures (33-34 centigrade) that will soon spread over almost the whole of Ukraine, apart from the northwest.

As reported, the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine forecasts that Ukraine could harvest 53-54 million tonnes of grain in 2013, compared to 46.2 million tonnes in 2012.

Ukraine for the harvest of 2013 sowed spring grains and leguminous crops on nearly 8.2 million hectares, with the areas under maize being nearly five million hectares.

Sugar beets this year have been sowed on 306,000 hectares, and sunflower on 4.09 million hectares.

The areas under winter crops in 2012 were 8.1 million hectares, including areas under winter wheat on 6.7 million hectares, those under rye on 300,000 hectares, and those under barley on 1.1 million hectares.