The pace of hay harvesting in the Vitebsk region exceeds last year's

August 7, Vitebsk / Olga Bogacheva - BELTA /. The pace of grass forage harvesting in the Vitebsk region exceeds last year's, the Agriculture and Food Committee of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee informed a BELTA correspondent. As of August 7, over 70 thousand hectares of second-cut grasses have been mown in the Vitebsk region, which is 53.9% of the planned area. On the same date last year, 47.6% of the planned area was harvested in the region. In total, grasses from 317 thousand hectares of first and second cuts have been harvested. Daily mowing rates have slightly decreased since the start of grain and leguminous crop harvesting due to the focus on stubble plowing and currently stand at 1%. The leaders in the second-cut grass harvesting are Verkhnedvinsk (86.7%), Gorodok (84.4%), Polotsk (83.7%), and Rossono (73.1%) districts. More than half of the areas have been harvested in Glubokskoye, Dubroven, Lepel, Liozno, Postavy, Tolochin, Ushachi, Chashniki, and Sharkovshchina districts. In total, farms in the region have harvested 167 thousand tons of hay, almost 2.3 million tons of silage, and 78.3 thousand tons of silage. The total forage base is 727.8 thousand tons of feed units (713.18 thousand tons as of August 7, 2011), or 50.3% of the target. There are 15.64 centners of feed units per conventional head of cattle, compared to 15.32 centners harvested by the same date in 2011.