U.S. winter wheat heads into dormancy

U.S. winter wheat heads into dormancy

Farm and Ranch December 2, 2010 The Pacific Northwest winter wheat crop headed into dormancy with pretty good crop condition ratings as snow arrived just ahead of some potentially damaging cold temperatures. The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service says Washington’s winter wheat goes into winter at 86 good to excellent. Idaho’s crop is rated 83 percent good to excellent with Oregon winter wheat rated at 60 percent good to excellent.

As for the winter wheat crop nationally;

Rippey: “The crop goes into the dormancy period not quite half good to excellent.”

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey who says overall only 47 percent of the wheat crop goes into winter in good to excellent shape. Last year it was up to 63 percent. Conversely 17 percent of the crop is in very poor to poor condition. It is more than 20 percent in key soft red winter and hard red winter wheat producing states in the Midwest and the Plains.

Dryness is the issue but Rippey says of the two regions it is the hard red areas giving the most concern.

Rippey: “Because they have remained dry while the soft red belt has received some moisture as of late. So Kansas, Texas, Colorado, even into portions of Oklahoma, all those areas we are concerned about because of thin stands going into dormancy.”

And the fact that Rippey does not expect very many big rain or snow storms in the coming weeks in those hard red states.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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