12/24/08 Pakistan and the "W" value

Farm and Ranch December 24, 2008 There can be a lot of specifications in a wheat tender: protein levels, falling number requirements, dockage, are all examples. How about something called the "W" value? Apparently that was a quality specification Pakistan had in that large tender everyone has been waiting to hear the results of. Dave Shelton of the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland says meeting the W value requirement is not easily accomplished. Shelton: "And that makes it a bit difficult for the exporters because the alveograph is the instrument that measures that W value. And what the alveograph does is to take a small pancake of dough and blows a bubble, and that size of the bubble before it breaks is an indication of gluten strength. And it is that balance of the stretchiness of the gluten and the strength of the gluten and I think they are probably relating it back to the flat breads that they make." Not exactly a test that can be performed as you're loading a ship. Shelton says you need samples from up country to be tested. Shelton: "Once wheat is identified and then could come to Portland, and load that vessel and make some happy customers in Pakistan." Unfortunately it does not appear that northwest exporters and soft white wheat growers, or the U.S. for that matter, will get to provide Pakistan any wheat for this latest tender. All the market commentary Tuesday was that Pakistan purchased 490-thousand metric tons of mostly Black Sea wheat. That's nearly 18 million bushels. There was also comment that another 100-thousand tons may be under negotiation. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.