Winter wheat emergence and crop ratings
Farm and Ranch November 18, 2010 The USDA says at the start of this week 87 percent of the U.S. winter wheat crop had emerged. That’s nine points ahead of last year for this time and two points ahead of the five year average. In the northwest, 97 percent of Washington’s winter wheat is up, 96 percent of Idaho’s and 89 percent of Oregon’s crop has emerged. Those numbers are all above the five year average. As for winter wheat crop condition ratings, USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says that is a mixed bag. Rippey: “The good news is for the northern growing areas of the northern plains and the northwest we have very good stands established. It had been mild. We had abundant moisture so wheat stands in places like South Dakota, Montana and the northwest are looking very good due to earlier conditions and that wheat should go into dormancy in pretty good shape. It is the areas farther south, parts of the eastern cornbelt, parts of the central and southern plains, that are the biggest concerns at this time. And those are the states, those areas, that is what is dragging down the winter wheat to a much lower level than we saw going into dormancy in 2009.” Rippey says nationally the winter wheat crop ratings moved up one point this past week to 46 percent good to excellent but as he pointed out it was much better a year ago, 64 percent good to excellent. States with large percentages of very poor to poor winter wheat are Texas, Colorado, Kansas and Indiana. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.
