Wheat Harvest

They're called small grains, not because they are small in importance, but because they're plants that have small hard seeds, including wheat, oats, barley and rye. The Agriculture Department has just come out with its new estimates of 2020, small grains production, just about wrapping up the tracking of those crops. First for wheat. Lance Honig, who runs the crops branch of USDA's AG Statistics Service, says some of these wheat numbers are on the low side, lower than some expected. For winter wheat…. “harvested area.,Twenty three million acres. That's down one point eight percent from the previous forecast, six point four percent fewer acres than were harvested last year. That is the lowest harvested acreage on record. And it's a little bit more abandonment on the winter wheat crop than what we had previously expected.” Yields for winter wheat look to be fifty point nine bushels an acre. “That's down five percent or two point seven bushels per acre from last season's final yield. So that puts our production for winter wheat in 2020 at one point one seven billion bushels.” Two point three percent lower than USDA projected back in August, just over 11 percent less than last season. For other spring wheat, that production pegged at 586 million bushels, up four percent from last season. Finally, Lance Hnig says the big boost in output comes for Durham. “The Durham crop, one point six eight million acres planted. That's up twelve point three percent from the previous estimate, twenty five point six percent more acres than were planted last year. And durum growers were able to harvest one point sixty six million acres, up 41 percent from a year ago. Bushels for each acre down, though, nine point six percent. So overall, durum production this year, sixty eight point eight million bushels has up eleven point four percent from the August forecast and twenty seven point five percent more than was produced the previous season.