Dry Pea Harvest

It’s a little bit early yet, but harvesting of dry peas has started in some parts of Washington. Tim McGreevy, with the U.S. Dry Pea & Lentil Council talks about how things are shaping up for growers.

MCGREEVY: You know, we’re just starting to get into it just a little bit right now. It’s just starting to happen down in the Walla Walla area we’re having some product, some peas being harvested. The chickpeas and lentils are still a little ways off. So far, so good, looks to be probably average yields for these crops.

A few producers did receive hail damage.

MCGREEVY: There was spotty damage. Seems like one region gets harder than others depending on the year and the different areas, but yeah, we did get some hail damage earlier which will have a significant impact on those producers for sure. But I wouldn’t say it was universal, but it was in areas that we do have production but not the major part of production, so it probably won’t show up as being a huge overall production loss. But of course a devastating loss for those producers that had the hail damage.

McGreevy says that crop yields in neighboring states are wildly fluctuating.

MCGREEVY: We have had some harvest in Montana and North Dakota and kind of variations all over the map for those growing regions - from some really great yields to some below average - slightly below average yields for these crops.

Tomorrow McGreevy shares dry pea and lentil market forecasts.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.