Most wheat yield records broken in PNW

Farm and Ranch October 3, 2011 There were plenty of anecdotal stories during this year’s wheat harvest in the Pacific Northwest of some huge individual yields. The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service confirmed that yesterday. It’s Small Grain Summary report showed average winter wheat yields were record high in Washington and Oregon. Average spring wheat yields set record highs in Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Here’s the average yields in the PNW; in Washington winter wheat went 75 bushels an acre, spring wheat 61 bushels. In Oregon the average winter wheat yield was 77 bushels with spring wheat at 70 bushels an acre. Idaho’s winter wheat yielded 82 bushels an acre with spring wheat at 84.

USDA chief economist Joe Glauber says total U.S. wheat production this year, winter and spring, is down nine percent from 2010 at 2.01 billion bushels.

Glauber: “Which is the third straight year of decline. I guess not unanticipated. We have had a tough year both with the wet weather in the northern plains and then the real dry weather in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. So the hard red winter crop was hit very, very hard.”

You can’t say that about soft white wheat, most of which is grown in the PNW. Production was up about 13 percent from last year at 289 million bushels.

The U.S. spring wheat crop, most of which is hard red spring, is down 25 percent from last year.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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