Hopes have dimmed further for Russia's grain crop after "disastrous" yields from early harvesting, analysts have SovEcon have earned, warning that the drop in production could top 20%.

The influential analysis group cut its forecast for the crop for the second time in eight days, lowering it to 77m-81m tonnes from an estimate of 82m-86m tonnes made last week.

The latest revision followed the release of preliminary results of the wheat harvest, which has been brought forward in many areas worst affected by Russia's heatwave in anticipation of crop stress causing grain to fall from ears to the ground, rendering it uncollectable.

"Some yields have been a disaster," Andrei Sizov, the SovEcon managing director, told Agrimoney.com, noting a yield of 0.8 tonnes per hectare from Saratov, in the Volga valley which, with central and Urals areas, has suffered particularly from the hot and dry weather.

"That is very, very low," he added, representing a fall of more than 40% on last year's 1.4 tonnes-per-hectare figure.

Dry weather continues

Russia's wheat harvest would fall by up to 20% to 49m tonnes, SovEcon said, giving its first crop-by-crop breakdown of its reduced forecasts for Russia's grains production, which hit 97m tonnes last year.

Production of barley, for which sowings were reduced in the face of low prices, looked set for a bigger percentage fall, of up to 33%, with the harvest pegged at 12m-14m tonnes.

"We had some rains in central Russia including Black Earth regions. However in other regions there has been no improvement in the weather conditions," Mr Sizov said. 

The downgrade is the latest in a series of cuts to grain harvest hopes in major producing countries, with Kazakhstan on Thursday unveiling a drop of up to 30% in output this year, while Canada said it expected its harvested area for wheat to tumble by 17%.