The latest European Joint Research Council crop report published on 22 February shows that winter cereals across Europe remain vulnerable to winter kill. The report shows that in most regions of western and central Europe, the hardening status of winter cereals has not improved, and remains lower than usual due to the persistence of above-average thermal conditions.

Hardening is a bio-physiological process of winter cereals that occurs when cellular starch is transformed into glucose to increase the freezing point of cellular liquid, thereby developing low-temperature tolerance in the plant. Our assessment refers to model simulations based on weather data up to mid-February. In the region between eastern Germany and central Ukraine, as well as in southern Russia, a slight increase in frost tolerance was simulated during the second half of January; whereas in central Europe and western Ukraine, the process of dehardening started in early February due to well above-average daily temperatures.

As a consequence, winter crops are practically not hardened in western and southern Europe, Germany, Romania, southern Poland, and western Ukraine.

Winter crops are in the partial or advanced hardening stages in northern Poland, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, central Ukraine, Slovakia and some regions of Hungary and the Czech Republic; whereas crops have reached full or almost full hardening in Belarus, eastern Ukraine and Russia (except in the most southern areas). During this winter, the majority of frost-kill events occurred in late December and early January. Western and southern Ukraine, Moldavia, south-western Belarus and some regions of southern Russia appear to have been moderately affected. Only slight/minor frost-kill damages are probable in western  Poland, eastern Bulgaria, eastern Romania and the Baltic countries. 

No additional significant damage is expected to have occurred since mid-January. Whereas the lack of hardening in most of Europe indicates that winter crops remain vulnerable, on the basis of the medium-range weather forecast, no further frost-kill damage is expected until the end of February.

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