What Last Week's USDA Reports Revealed for Wheat

Last week the USDA released its Crop Production and World Agricultural Supply and Demand Report. Washington State University Ag Economist Dr. Randy Fortenberry shares more report details and what it means for Pacific Northwest grain growers.

Fortenberry: “The numbers were pretty bullish. Certainly we would expected that there would have been a positive price reaction. They lowered the corn crop -- which is good for wheat actually. But also for the wheat crop the production number was up and yields were up but because of other parts of the supply/demand, the overall carryout --what we will have at the end of the year -- went down a lot. Exports went up 100 million bushels -- that was a big, big increase -- that was very positive. So generally the report was very positive. In addition to those reports, the Export Inspection Report shows that we are doing business and so we have picked up what -- some people in June -- thought we wouldn’t get back.”

Although ideally we’d like all of the wheat exported to be white white, but Dr. Fortenberry says any U.S. wheat being exported is good news for Pacific Northwest growers.

Fortenberry: “It is -- it is better if they are buying white wheat. But China buying soft red wheat out of the Gulf is still are really positive thing for us.”

U.S. wheat harvest is behind this year as Dr. Fortenberry explains

Fortenberry: “So we may find that the winter wheat production number is not quite as good as it looks right now. We don’t know as much about it as we did a year ago. We’ve only harvested maybe 57 percent of the crop, last year it was like 78 percent. The five-year average is 65 percent.”