Kherson region farmers plan to increase watermelon acreage this year
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- Alona Kokhanchuk
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12:49, 14 January, 2025
Watermelons in the Kherson region. Photo: KhRMAThis year, the Kherson region plans to increase the area under watermelons and melons by one and a half or even two times. However, some crops had to be abandoned due to problems with irrigation systems.
This was stated by Dmytro Yunusov, Director of the Agriculture Department of the Kherson Regional State Administration, in an interview with «IPC-South».
He said that more than 150,000 hectares of land in the region were sown for the 2024 harvest. Due to the lack of irrigation in the Kherson region, farmers were forced to abandon crops that were grown only under irrigation. These include crops such as corn and rice.
He also said that in 2024, the region's farmers planted more than a thousand hectares with melons. The harvest increased 7-8 times, from 3,000 tonnes in 2023 to 22,500 tonnes last year.
He noted that without the liberation of the left bank of the Kherson region, it is impossible to reach the level that was there before the war, as the soils on the left bank are different from those on the right bank of the region. However, this year they are already planning to increase the area under crops.
«I spoke to farmers who were sowing watermelons for 2024. All of them plan to increase the area. Our Kherson watermelon is very popular, it was in high demand in Kharkiv, Kyiv and other regions of western Ukraine. And even when our watermelons had not yet grown in the fields, they were already purchased by entrepreneurs from other regions. Given this demand, we plan to increase the area under Kherson watermelons by one and a half to two times in 2025», said Dmytro Yunusov.
He also added that the area under crops also depends on land demining. Another priority for the year is to restore irrigation in the region. In 2024, 3,000 hectares of the Inhulets irrigation system were restored, so in 2025 it is planned to increase the irrigation area to 6,000 hectares.
Earlier it was reported that in 2024, the area under watermelon and melon cultivation in Mykolaiv region increased by 28% compared to the previous year.