11/19/08 Rain helps winter grain

Farm and Ranch November 19, 2008 The recent rain provided a sigh of relief for many Pacific Northwest winter wheat growers. Like Whitman County Washington farmer Randy Suess. Suess: "We finally got the rain. The wheat's up. It didn't freeze over night for a long time, so that wheat is coming up. So we are feeling a lot better right now than we did even three weeks ago." Winter wheat emergence in Washington is still behind normal however and thirty percent of the crop is rated poor to very poor. Emergence is running well behind normal in Oregon too, where nearly a quarter of the winter wheat is rated poor. Precipitation for the season in north central Oregon is still just over 51 percent of normal in many locations. Idaho Grain Producers Association President Matt Gellings rates his state's winter wheat. Gellings: "In Idaho we are okay. It is not the best that we've had. Hopefully we will have a good winter. It was nice to have water last year. We didn't have to worry about water." USDA rates Idaho's crop at 88 percent good to excellent. Except for perhaps some reseeding, planting is about complete in the Northwest. Nationally USDA' winter wheat ratings slipped a couple of points this week to 66 percent good to excellent with only seven percent very poor to poor. That however, is much better than last year at this time when only 45 percent of U.S. winter wheat was in good to excellent condition. The U.S. corn harvest had reached 78 percent complete to start this week. Normally 94 percent of the crop would be in the bin by now. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.