Wheat harvest progress

Farm and Ranch August 12, 2009 Despite some rain delays, and there could be more this week, combines covered a lot of winter wheat ground last week. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey has the numbers on harvest progress.

Rippey: “We saw 20% of the crop harvested just in the last week in Idaho to reach 37%. We saw more than 30% harvested in Montana to reach 42 percent. And we continue to see a rapid pace of harvest in the Northwest. Washington state advancing 25 points during the week to reach 63%.”

In Oregon 86% of the winter wheat had been harvested to start the week. Nationwide 91 percent of the winter wheat crop is in the bin.

The spring wheat harvest in the northwest has progressed to 65 percent complete in Oregon, 36 percent in Washington and just four percent in Idaho. As for the hard red spring wheat states, USDA’s Rippey says;

Rippey: “Just underway in the last week now, one percent of the crop harvested in Montana and North Dakota. The greatest progress in South Dakota, 43 percent overall, 25% in the last week. That is still behind the five year average of 66% as we have seen a delayed crop there as well.”

On a national basis only eight percent of the spring wheat crop was cut at the start of this week, well behind the five year average for now of 31 percent.

The second week of harvest samples processed through the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland shows soft white wheat protein still well below last year’s crop at 10.1 percent. Test weight was 60 pounds.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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