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U.S. winter wheat harvest begins: 2021

U.S. winter wheat harvest begins: 2021

About 2 percent of the crop is off, the USDA reports

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Combines are starting to roll in American winter wheat fields.

About 2 percent of the crop has been harvested, the USDA said in its June 6 Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin.

U.S. farmers planted around 30.6 million winter wheat acres in 2020. This means approximately 612,000 acres have been harvested.

On a state level, Texas farmers lead the nation.

Growers in the state have harvested about 50 percent of their winter wheat, the USDA’s report says.

Texas farmers planted about 4.8 million acres of winter wheat in 2020. This translates to about 2.4 million acres being harvested as of the June 6 report.

The USDA is reporting four additional states with winter wheat harvest progress.

Farmers in Arkansas, California, North Carolina and Oklahoma have harvested 26, 14, 15 and 16 percent of their winter wheat acres, respectively.

Soybeans across the U.S. continue to emerge.

As of the USDA’s June 6 report, about 76 percent of the crop has emerged, up from 62 percent last week.

The USDA’s Prospective Plantings report from March estimated farmers would plant 87.6 million acres of soybeans. Using that figure, that means soybeans have emerged on about 66.6 million acres across the U.S. as of June 6.

Soybeans in Minnesota are 93 percent emerged, which is the most among the 18 recorded states.

The lowest emergence percentage belongs to Kentucky with 57 percent.

U.S. corn has almost completely emerged.

About 90 percent of the corn crop is up, the USDA reported in its weekly crop bulletin. This represents an 8 percent increase from last week’s report.

March’s planting intentions report pegged seeded corn acres around 91.1 million.

Using that figure, corn has emerged on about 82 million U.S. acres.

Only one state, North Carolina, is reporting total corn emergence.

Colorado and Pennsylvania each are reporting 68 percent corn emergence. This is the lowest among the 18 documented states.


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Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators