07/02/07 Spring wheat acres up in PNW, down in U.S.

Farm and Ranch July 2, 2007 Farmers in the Pacific Northwest are expected to harvest 50-thousand more acres of spring wheat this year than they did in 2006. The U.S. as a whole however has a spring wheat crop that is down 12 percent in acreage from last year at 13-million 144-thousand acres. Most of that acreage is hard red spring wheat. That's what the USDA reported in its Planted Acreage report issued Friday in which total U.S. wheat acreage in 2007, both winter and spring, was pegged at 60.5 million acres, up six percent from 2006. Winter wheat acres increased one percent from USDA's last estimate. Joe Victor of Allendale Incorporated says the wheat acreage numbers aren't as important now as weather. Victor: "And based on our private weather forecast agencies we are working with these problems are not going away anytime soon. Looking for rains to continue to pound into that Texas-Oklahoma region. We are losing milling quality as well as losing acres because of flooding problems I those two particular states." Corn plantings in the U.S are up 19 percent from last year at 92.9 million acres, the largest area since 1944. Soybean acreage is down 15 percent. Barley growers seeded just over four million acres for 2007, up 17 percent from 2006. Barley acreage in Idaho is up nine percent. In Washington it's up 15 percent. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.