04/02/08 Too dry and too wet

Farm and Ranch April 2, 2008 We are still waiting for the USDA to begin its weekly crop ratings nationally for this year's winter wheat crop but department meteorologist Brad Rippey has some numbers from state reports. They are primarily from hard red winter wheat states where dryness remains a concern. Rippey: "Looking at the percentage of the wheat rated very poor to poor for the week ending March 30th. Just running through the Plains states starting with Texas 47%. Colorado and the high Plains region very dry 32% very poor to poor. Oklahoma a quarter of their crop rated very poor to poor. Kansa 20% very poor to poor, the western third of the state being the problem area. Even up in the northern areas where wheat is starting to green up we see 15% of the crop rated very poor to poor in Montana and South Dakota." In the soft red winter wheat belt of the Midwest too much moisture may be a problem for the crop. And that is apparently not changing in the near future. Rippey: "By April 3rd and 4th we are looking at the possibility of another 4-6 inches of rain across the mid-South and the lower Midwest." Rippey says it could lead to significant delays in planting the U.S. corn crop. And he points out that in some past La Nina years like this, after a wet spring the weather suddenly turned very hot and dry in the Midwest, though he is not predicting that. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.