Ukrainian wheat exports are expected to suffer from a drop in plantings and a poor start to the growing season reduce production.

Wheat production in the country has been threatened by dry weather during the autumn, and now a sharp drop in temperatures, at a time when key areas have very little protection from snow cover.

Falling exports

The consultancy upped its forecast for 2015-16 wheat exports to 14m tonnes, from an earlier forecast of 13m tonnes.

"But next marketing year we are expecting that exports will be lower," grain analyst Liza Malyshko told Agrimoney.com.

Exports for next season are currently seen at 8.5m tonnes, but Ms Malyshko warned that "we could decrease this figure soon," citing unfavourable conditions".

Patchy snow

Ukraine has seen patchy snow cover in its western and southern regions, although the eastern region has heavier snow cover.

This leaves the winter wheat crop exposed to cold weather, which arrived in earnest over the weekend.

The crop is particularly vulnerable because it already suffered from dry weather during the winter wheat sowing season.

The dry weather also discouraged planting.

Falling sowings

Last week UkrAgroConsult edged up its forecast for the 2016 winter wheat crop by 0.3m tonnes to0 17.8m tonnes, due to a slightly larger than expected planted area.

UkAgroConsult sees Ukrainian wheat plantings for the coming harvest, including spring wheat, at 6.2m hectares.

This is down around 700,000 hectares from 2015-16 sowings.