Crop Progress Across the Pacific Northwest

Crop Progress Across the Pacific Northwest

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

As the days turn warmer and farmers are getting in the fields again, weekly USDA National Ag Statistics Services crop progress begin sharing crop emergence and planting progress.

USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey gives an nationwide perspective of winter wheat progress as of last Friday.

Rippey: “As wheat comes out of dormancy and begins to grow in the spring of 2013, we see 34 percent of the crop rated good to excellent, 30 percent poor to very poor. And as we’ve been talking all winter long in the weekly reports we see the big problems across the Great Plains in the hard red winter wheat crop from South Dakota to Texas.”

Closer to home in the Pacific Northwest the news is brighter for our region’s winter wheat crop. Idaho reports 39 percent of its winter wheat’s condition as fair and 48 percent as good and 11 percent as excellent. Spring wheat planting is a little ahead of its five-year average at 12 percent planted.

Washington reports 25 percent of its winter wheat to be in fair condition, 46 percent good and 25 percent excellent. It has 25 percent of the state’s spring wheat in the ground.

Oregon has 27 percent of its winter wheat considered to be in fair condition and 71 percent good and a mere 1 percent as excellent. This year is ahead of the five-year planting average for spring wheat at 28 percent.