Average wheat harvest expected

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Average wheat harvest expected Natural resources

John Stucke - Staff writer

Eastern Washington farmers are busy seeding spring wheat and hoping for timely rains, anticipating an average harvest and low prices this growing season.

Such ho-hum predictions are still better than last year, when drought altered planting decisions and stunted yields.

"The winter wheat came through really well this year," said Diana Roberts, an agronomist with Washington State University's cooperative extension service. "It's looking strong and healthy.

"We've taken some soil tests and found saturation down to 4 feet. Last year, some farmers were below 2 feet."

With adequate water stored in the soil, Spokane and Whitman County farmers have reason to be optimistic. What they need now is a handful of rainy days in May and June.

It's the same for wheat farmers in drier Adams and Lincoln counties, said agronomist Aaron Esser.

He said there's been no reports of winter kill or snow mold affecting winter wheat.

At harvest time, farmers should expect wheat to fetch $3.30 to $3.50 a bushel, said Paul Patterson, an agricultural economist with the University of Idaho.

That's a little less than farmers collected during the past year. Keeping prices low is a worldwide abundance of grain, even as U.S. farmers eased production by 10 percent last year.

This stockpile, he said, "will continue to act as a buffer and will likely retard any significant price improvement without some unanticipated export demand or some unforeseen crop disaster."

Washington farmers seeded about 1.8 million acres of winter wheat last fall. That's 3 percent less than a year earlier.

Spring wheat planting is expected to total about 620,000 acres this year, 20,000 fewer acres than last year, predicted Doug Hasslen, state statistician for the Washington Department of Agriculture.

Spring barley planting is expected to be about 400,000 acres, off 30,000.

What's rising is hay and corn.

Growers hope to harvest about 830,000 acres of hay, about 40,000 more acres than last year, when supplies were tight and prices soared.

The shortage was due to drought. Growing conditions were poor, and some irrigators turned off their pumps as part of wide-scale energy buyouts, said John Fouts in Spokane County's extension office.

This year, he said, the hay market may be a little soft.

"More acres were put in, cattle prices are down, milk prices are down -- many folks out there are pinching pennies," he said.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2002

Answers

Glad to see Washington pulling through. Hope they don't have to feed the rest of the country this year.

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2002

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