Although it is still too early to assess how winter crops have made it through the winter, it is already apparent that in many regions, winter crop fields have suffered extensive frost damage, Lea Narits, an oilseed researcher at the Center of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge, told ERR.

"The situation on the fields of oil crops is quite dire right now. I just drove across Estonia – from Mustvee to Pärnu, and passed quite a lot of fields that were completely dead," Narits said.

In Võrumaa, Jaagumäe Farm planted winter crops on more than a thousand hectares last autumn. According to long-time farmer Marti Timm, the fields that had less snow suffered damage.

"The disappearance of snow in the winter varied. Rapeseed and winter barley don't tolerate temperatures below -20 degrees Celsius well, and it all depended on how much snow there was. Usually, the area around Võru is quite snow-poor, and so the rapeseed and winter barley fields near Võru have already been damaged, but now the current difference in night and day temperatures on the ground – it's unclear how much it affects the roots," the farmer explained.

According to Lea Narits, winter crop plants are damaged by long periods of fluctuation between freezing and above freezing temperatures.

"Just like the weather we've had here for a week where it's above freezing during the day – plus six, some days even plus eight degrees, while the nights are still cold. It moves the soil and tears apart the roots, so maybe from a distance, such a nice green plant is, upon closer inspection, already broken and torn, and nothing more can come of it," Narits explained.

Narits mentioned that this winter has been rather exceptional.

"This was the second such winter in my thirty years on the job where the plants have been damaged so badly. It's really exceptional. I hope we don't have many more winters like this, because otherwise, growing winter rapeseed here in Estonia becomes critical."

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