Soft white wheat low protein premiums

Farm and Ranch March 17, 2009 Higher protein in the 2008 Pacific Northwest soft white wheat crop certainly made premiums for lower protein soft white a major feature of the market. Segregating by protein is something John Oades of U.S. Wheat Associates in Portland has preached for a long time. Oades: "I really wear on my producer friends. They pay my salary, 100% of it and when we ignore those kind of opportunities, both at the farm level and particularly at the country elevator level which some do, in years like this I point out the difference in price. You are looking at premiums approaching a $1 for 8.5 maximum soft white wheat. You just can't ignore that. The other thing I mention to them is when do you begin to think about what the protein might be in this year's crop. Can you begin to anticipate this ahead of harvest. Well, yes. When last year did you think we might have a stressed crop? Well in May. Bingo! There we are. We can begin to think in advance of the crop whether it is going to be normal protein, high or low. If it is going to be higher than normal go lease some protein machines for key country elevators and do at least one segregation for protein." Oades says some are doing that very well, others ignore it utterly. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.