03/19/07 Possible rosy scenario for soft white

Farm and Ranch March 19, 2007 A possible scenario in which Pacific Northwest soft white wheat supplies could drop to their lowest level in 17 years was presented to a recent meeting of the Washington Wheat Commission. If those stocks were to drop to the scenario's projected 34.5 million bushels for the marketing year that ends in May of 2008, the indication of course is strong prices for soft white wheat. The presentation at the meeting was made by Wheat Commission CEO Tom Mick, who doubly emphasizes the preliminary nature of the numbers he worked with, which he assured everyone will change. The projection is driven by the increasing plantings of hard red winter and hard red spring wheat in the region. In Washington, the largest PNW wheat growing state, the hard reds have accounted for 10-11 percent of production but Mick projects that this year that will increase to 27 to 28 percent, maybe even higher. Mick: "That means there is a loss of soft white winter acreage that was planted that went to hard red wheat. We won't know for sure until the middle of July when we get our varietal survey out exactly what those numbers will be but all indications are that in the Pacific Northwest total supply of soft white will probably be as low as they were in 1991 when we had the big freeze. So stocks could be tight." Again Mick says this is all based on preliminary numbers and the actual carryout projected could be better, or could be worse. I'm Bob Hoff.