01/14/08 U.S. winter wheat plantings less than expected

Farm and Ranch January 14, 2008 Despite strong prices U.S. farmers did not plant as much winter wheat this past fall as many expected them to. USDA reported Friday that planted winter wheat acreage for 2008 is 46.6 million acres, up four percent from 2007. White winter wheat, the predominant grain grown in the Pacific Northwest is up seven percent in acreage over last year at 3.65 million acres. By state in the region, Idaho saw the biggest increase in winter wheat seedings with a 20 percent jump in acreage. Oregon has a four percent increase in plantings and Washington is up two percent. Brian Hoops of Midwest Market Solutions in Yankton, South Dakota says U.S. hard red winter wheat plantings were actually down one percent from 2007. Hoops: "We think dry weather limited plantings in some areas of the region as we saw acres down about 500,00 in Kansas and about 200-thousand in Oklahoma and Texas. Where the increase came is in the soft red wheat areas. We saw about a 21% increase in those areas from last year." In a supply and demand report the USDA actually increased old crop wheat ending stocks slightly for both the U.S. and the world from its estimate last month, but supplies are still at historical lows. And USDA is projecting a record national season-average farm price for wheat at $6.45 to $6.85 a bushel, up 25 cents on each end of the range from its last forecast. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.