07/23/08 Wheat harvest slightly behind average pace

Farm and Ranch July 23, 2008 Winter wheat harvesting is now underway in all three Pacific Northwest states. At the start of this week one percent of Idaho's crop had been harvested, seven percent of Washington's and Oregon was the most advanced with 23 percent of the crop cut. Development of the crop was slow due to the cool spring and harvesting in all three states was a few points behind the five year average for now. Oregon's Sherman County reported some low test weights of 55-56 pounds. Tom Mick of the Washington Grain Alliance says protein levels were lower than preferred in hard red wheats and higher than desired in soft white in the very early going. Nationally, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says this past week saw rapid harvest progress with 71 percent of the U.S. winter wheat crop now in the bin. Rippey: "And progress extremely rapid in the last week in Ohio where more than half the crop was harvested in just one week and the progress overall went from 43 to 98 percent harvested. Other states reporting very rapid progress in the last week include Michigan and Nebraska. Both of those states reporting 43% harvested between July 13thand July 20th." The condition of the U.S. spring wheat crop improved slightly this past week to 63 percent good to excellent, still well below last year's 75 percent at this time. The rating for the U.S. corn crop right now is actually better this year than it was in 2007 at 65 percent good to excellent. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.