Spring Weather and Wheat in Idaho

 Well the spring planting of wheat is well underway in Idaho, just like the rest of the country. Whoops…wait a minute, this must be a report from another year because many places in Idaho have been heavily affected by cool, wet weather. As it relates to wheat across the country, there’s drought in the Southern Plains - the heart of winter wheat production in the U.S. – and that has been stressing the crop. For example, the Texas wheat crop will be down about 37% from last year.

 Blaine Jacobson, Executive Director of the Idaho Wheat Commission discusses what’s going on here in Idaho. “Generally throughout the state we’re running below where we were last year. In Northern Idaho it’s particularly extreme, Eastern Idaho is below, SW Idaho is on schedule, maybe a little ahead.”

 Are we going to be able to do any catching up?

 (Jacobson) “If the weather turns, certainly we’ve got a good month left to be able to get the crop in and each grower has their own target date. After a certain date they can’t plant wheat and then they might shift to barley. But, on the wheat side most growers still have a few weeks left to get their crop in so it’s going to be delayed but I don’t believe they’re at the point yet of shifting from wheat to a different crop.”