PNW winter wheat acres a mixed bag
Farm and Ranch January 13, 2011 Up, down, steady. That’s how winter wheat acreage in the Pacific Northwest differs among the three states. In its first estimate of winter wheat plantings for harvest this year USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service says acreage in Washington is unchanged from 2010, Oregon’s acres are down a percent and Idaho saw a 12-percent increase over last year. Nationally USDA pegged winter wheat plantings last fall at 41 million acres, a ten percent increase over 2010 crop seedings. That was about as anticipated. By class white winter wheat is up four percent, hard red winter also up four and soft red winter wheat acreage is up 47 percent following a year of record or near record low plantings. In its supply and demand report USDA cut U.S. wheat endings stocks 40 million bushels due in part to a fifty million bushel increase in the export forecast from last month. After analyzing the reports Peter Georgantones of Abbot Futures in Minneapolis said all classes of wheat should move higher over the next few months. Georgantones: “But especially Kansas, Minneapolis over Chicago. I think once spring comes into play here and the rivers open, barge traffic starts moving again, we are going to see a lot of spring wheat, milling quality business coming in our direction here. I think we are going to head up to $9.50 to $10. That‘s the way the charts look. We are going to get help from corn and soybeans.” The U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio is a very tight 5.5 percent. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net. ? ? ?
