PARIS, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The European Union's crop monitoring service MARS on Monday raised its projections for Russia's 2022 wheat crop to a new record high, but lowered its grain maize crop forecast to take account of hot and dry summer weather.
In a report, MARS estimated the Russian wheat harvest at 95.0 million tonnes, up from 88.8 million seen in its previous estimate in June, and now 25% above last year.
That included 70.2 million tonnes of winter wheat, up 31% on last year, and 24.8 million tonnes of spring wheat, up 10%.
The revised wheat crop forecast was still below those released by leading Russian analysts, including the Sovecon consultancy, which last week raised its forecast for Russia's 2022 wheat crop to 100 million tonnes from 94.7 million tonnes due to high yields of spring wheat.
For barley, MARS projected Russia's crop at 21.7 million tonnes, up 2 million from its June estimate and now 18% above 2021.
It cut its forecast for the grain maize harvest to 16.4 million tonnes from 16.7 million tonnes in June, now 6% above last year.
"The persistent rain deficit during summer, followed by a heatwave in August is expected to have negatively affected the grain maize yield potential in south-western parts of European Russia," it said.
To access the full MARS report: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC127976 (Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Jan Harvey and Mark Potter)
