As harvest winds down, wheat crops nationally and in some states, including Nebraska, show a big percentage looking poor or worse.
Nebraska's latest crop condition report showed the hard red winter wheat crop rated 15 percent very poor, and 20 percent poor, 32 percent fair, 31 good, and 2 excellent. Harvest in Nebraska is at 81 percent, about average.
That was the biggest percentage of poor and very poor of any hard red winter wheat-growing state in the nation, according to the last national report by the USDA.
Earlier this month, USDA predicted Nebraska’s winter wheat crop will be 54.6 million bushels this year, down 23 percent from a year ago, because of a variety of adverse weather reasons.
The last condition report of the crop year for Kansas, the biggest wheat producer, which is done harvesting, showed 10 percent very poor and 20 percent poor condition at mid-July.
Oregon and South Dakota, too, among the winter wheat states, showed more than 30 percent of the crop in very poor and poor condition.
Nationally, at last report by the 18 winter-wheat states, 7 percent of the crop was very poor and 16 percent poor. A year ago it was 22 percent very poor and 22 percent poor, so this year is actually an improvement.
The quality of some of the first soft winter wheat harvested by U.S. farmers this year is the worst in at least 17 years, according to U.S. Wheat Associates, after heavy rain fell across eastern states where it is grown.
Some elevator managers said the crop was fit for nothing but livestock feed.
The most recent government estimate is for total U.S. wheat production to reach a three-year high, but the state of the winter crop shows how quickly the outlook for crops can worsen because of adverse weather.
Source - http://journalstar.com/
