This year’s Hard Red Winter wheat crop has seemed to have moved along much quicker than most farmers around the state had anticipated it would. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays invited Mark Hodges of Plains Grains to visit him in studio this week to discuss the current condition of the crop. According to him, in some areas of the state, cutting could potentially begin in just a matter of a few weeks. You can hear their entire conversation about the condition of this year’s wheat crop in Oklahoma as harvest quickly approaches, by clicking or tapping on the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of this story.
“Really, it’s a symptom of how this crop developed,” Hodges said. “Last fall we got a fairly good stand; got root development; got tillers, but then we didn’t get any moisture until about a month ago.”
Hodges contends that one can tell a lot about this year’s crop just by looking at it, particularly the effects that drought and warm weather has had on it. From his observations, Hodges says the crop is much shorter than we have seen in years past. He believes yield potential this year will be down, but says grazing had as much to do with this as did the weather.
“Producers probably left cattle on another two to two and a half, maybe three weeks longer than they probably should have,” he said. “They’re still going to have enough wheat production to go back with seed some and maybe that’s their intent.”
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