07/12/06 Survey confirms hard red wheat increase

Soft white wheat is still the dominant class of winter wheat produced in Washington but this year hard red spring wheat surpassed soft white spring and represents 64 percent of the spring wheat acreage in the state. Those results are from an annual variety survey conducted by the Washington Ag Statistics Service for the Washington Wheat Commission. That survey showed hard red spring wheat acreage increasing 78 percent from last year to total over 294-thousand acres. Hard red winter wheat was up over 90-thousand acres from 2005 at 202-thousand acres. Wheat Commission CEO Tom Mick says the increase in hard reds is not surprising. Mick: "This was expected due to the price difference between these wheats and soft white, anywhere from $1.60 to over $2 for spring wheat." As for varieties, Eltan, Madsen, Oregon's Clearfield 101 and Tubbs are the top four soft white winters this year. Bruehl is the top club wheat. Finley, Buchanan, Declo and Residence the leading hard red winters, Alpowa the top soft white spring followed by Nick, and Hank, Westbred 926 and Pronto are the leading hard red springs. I'm Bob Hoff.