With spring wheat harvest under way in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, many producers may be cutting a nice hard red spring wheat crop in 2016 with slightly lower yields.
Scouts on the three-day Wheat Quality Council’s 2016 Hard Red Spring and Durum Wheat Quality Tour estimated the HRSW crop to yield 45.7 bushels per acre, down from the tour’s 2015 forecast of 49.9 bushels and the five-year average of 45.96 bushels.
“The tour went very well. Yield estimates for spring wheat were down from last year, but we have had two years of excellent crop yields and we can’t expect a record crop every year,” said Ben Handcock, the longtime executive director of the Wheat Quality Council and lead tour coordinator. “Still, it is a very nice looking crop with just a bit of scab in some of it – not much of an issue. There should be some good protein levels from the crop being stressed some.”
Handcock commented they saw a lot more durum acres this year, probably because prices were up slightly for durum.
Durum, grown mostly in western North Dakota and eastern Montana, was estimated by tour participants to average 45.4 bushels per acre. This year’s durum estimate was higher when compared with 39.2 bushels per acre in 2015, and the five-year average of 38.3 bushels per acre.
Handcock suspects the hot weather experienced in many northern areas this summer decreased yield estimates. Some areas had heat stress early, followed by very heavy rain (northern North Dakota), and yield estimates suffered from that. Some fields also suffered from hail damage.
“But farmers did a good job of protecting their wheat crop this year. They sprayed fungicides and used more disease-resistant varieties. There were tire tracks all over the fields, so we know they were out there spraying,” Handcock said.
Handcock took the tour that started in northern South Dakota, which is a more difficult tour because there is so much soybean and corn, and wheat is hard to find. It also covered southern North Dakota, and tour participants encountered summer storms.
There were more than 70 participants in 18 cars taking part in the annual crop survey.
“We had more participants than ever before on the tour,” Handcock said.
Participants included producers, some from the respetive state wheat commissions, NDSU research scientists, grain grower associations, U.S. Wheat Associates representatives, flour millers, bakers and grain traders.
Scouts on this year’s tour sampled 455 fields overall, including 407 HRSW, 42 durum fields and six fields of hard red winter wheat.
Participants stated the crop was ahead of schedule primarily due to warm spring weather that allowed planting to begin early.
The last day of the tour marked the end of an era for Handcock, who has led both the Kansas winter wheat and North Dakota spring wheat tours for the past 25 years.
He will retire in Brighton, Colo., north of Denver, and commented the winter wheat cut is his area was very nice this year.
“All the wheat this year from Texas to Kansas northward to Colorado has been nice. There are record yields this year in Kansas,” Handcock said. However, low protein content was common in this year’s winter wheat harvest.
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