04/11/07 U.S. winter wheat ratings slip

Farm and Ranch April 11, 2007 That cold weather in the Plains and Midwest has already had an impact on the condition ratings for the U.S. winter wheat crop. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey has the latest weekly rating. Rippey: "For the national number for winter wheat condition, now at 64% good to excellent and 10% very poor to poor. A week ago before the freeze 71 and six percent were those numbers respectively." Of course that's still much better than a year ago at this time when only 41 percent of the U.S. winter wheat crop was in good to excellent condition. However, Rippey says it will take a while to know the full extent of damage from the cold spell. Rippey: "And for the wheat it can be the most prolonged agony of all because sometimes it is the weather after the freeze that makes it whether you are going to have a reduced crop, a robust crop or a lost crop. So certainly there is a wide range of possibilities for the wheat from here on out even in areas that may have seen some damage." In the Northwest, Idaho's winter wheat improved a little and is now 90 percent good to excellent. Oregon's winter wheat went from 55 percent good to excellent last week to 75 percent this week. In Washington the crop rating dropped from 78 percent good to excellent to 74 percent. Only four percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop has been seeded which is behind average but in Idaho 46 percent of spring wheat has been planted, in Washington 40 percent and in Oregon 72 percent. Barley planting in Idaho is over half done, in Washington over a third of the crop has been planted, and in Oregon 60 percent of the barley is in the ground. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.