More Good Wheat, Prevented Planting Acres

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The day two results are in from the Hard Red Spring Wheat Tour.

by Katie Micik, DTN Markets Editor

DEVILS LAKE, N.D. (DTN) — Scouts saw more good quality spring wheat on the second day of the Wheat Quality Council's Hard Red Spring Wheat Tour.

Scouts sampled wheat in western and northern parts of North Dakota on Wednesday and estimated an average yield of 47.3 bushels per acre, up from 44.6 bpa last year. The average includes a mix of spring, winter and durum wheat.

Spring wheat yield averaged 48.4 bpa with a high yield of 83.9 bpa and a low yield of 24 bpa from 150 fields. That compares to last year's 45 bpa average.

Scouts saw 14 fields of durum wheat, all in the northwest corner of the state. Its yield averaged 36.6 bpa. Scouts did report seeing some tan spot on durum wheat. Last year's yield averaged 40.1 bpa.

The winter wheat crop was much closer to maturity, and scouts estimated the yield at 45.9 bpa from five fields compared to a 70.5 bpa average. Ben Handcock, tour organizer executive director of the Wheat Quality Council, said he expected to see more winter wheat this year.

“I thought there was going to be a lot of prevented planting from last year that was planted to winter wheat,” he said. “I thought when I got to Minot I'd see a lot of that, but I didn't see near what I had expected. There was a lot more spring wheat.”

A producer responded that a lot of the winter wheat planted last fall was killed during the winter and replanted to spring wheat.

On the first day of the tour through southern regions of the state, scouts pegged the overall wheat estimate at 48.1 bushels per acre, higher than last year's 43.5 bpa. That estimate includes both spring and winter wheat varieties. The average for spring wheat yield from 156 fields was calculated at 48.3 bpa, compared to 43.3 bpa from last year. Scouts measured six winter wheat fields with an average yield of 42.9.

Most of the crop in central North Dakota was in the late milk to early dough stages. Scouts saw some scab but it was not a major issue. Scouts saw very little to be concerned about in the central part of the state outside of some lodging from recent storms.

“Wheat crop looks really good but it's late, six to eight weeks I would guess,” said Dan Hendrickson, a farmer from Colfax, N.D. “There's very little disease, and the stands are great.”

Prevented planting was also very common on his route through northwestern North Dakota. He estimated that 15{ba1edae1e6da4446a8482f505d60d3b8e379ff6dedafe596d9ba4611a4e33a48} to 20{ba1edae1e6da4446a8482f505d60d3b8e379ff6dedafe596d9ba4611a4e33a48} of intended spring wheat acreage was left fallow. A cool spring kept the soil from warming. Regular rains kept farmers out of the fields. They planted as much as they could before the prevented planting date for crop insurance arrived.

His car passed many fields that were still in the jointing phase. The spring wheat tour uses a formula that counts spikelets on heads, so they didn't have a formula to count it.

“It's a long time to harvest. There's a lot of things that could happen. A heat weave. A frost,” Hendrickson said.

While the crop will likely have a solid yield, protein content may be in question.

“With this late crop, there's not as much sunlight when you get late in the season and it's harder to (get) higher protein,” Hendrickson said. “With all the moisture, there's been no stress. Stress makes protein. But we'll see. In 10, eight weeks we'll see.”

Handcock added, “Typically when you have huge yields, you have a little lower protein, but that doesn't mean it's not going to bake well. We won't know about that until we get it to the labs. I would expect we'll see lower protein than we'd like to have on this crop. They have higher protein on the winter wheat, but there's not much of a crop to speak of.”

 

© Copyright 2014 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved.

Posted with DTN Permission by Haylie Shipp

 

 

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