06/20/06 Sizing up the wheat export year ahead

Farm and Ranch June 20, 2006 The 2006-2007 wheat marketing year began June 1st so what kind of export year might PNW and U.S. wheat growers expect? John Oades of U.S. Wheat Associates Portland office says first off, the overall U.S. crop will be smaller. Oades: "But we are encouraged that we do have a very similar supply outlook for soft white as we did this last year. Our hard red spring crop is also looking pretty good to date in the U.S. Of course soft red in the east is going to be a big crop. The class that is really hurting this year is hard red winter and prices will have to ration that crop for the domestic and export market, which of course it's doing." Oades believes soft white wheat will have more competition this year from soft red winter wheat. Oades: "Soft red production is up very substantially and just the tail end of last week we saw signs of it, soft red export prices finally slipping back below soft white for the first time in many months." But Oades says there will be somewhat less competition from Black Sea wheat in the northern Africa and Middle East markets including Egypt. Oades: "So I am looking forward to a positive year." USDA will issue its first projections on supply and demand by wheat class in early July. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.