Agricultural News
Double Dose of Storms Hammer 2011 Oklahoma Wheat Crop
Wed, 25 May 2011 20:25:01 CDT
Wheat Yield Test Plots in Okarche were wiped out this week and these photographs of the wheat test plot are taken 3 miles straight east of Okarche on the County Line Road. Oklahoma Wheat Commission Chief Executive Officer Mike Schulte reports that this area was hit pretty hard by golf ball and baseball size hail. This happened on Monday evening. Mike adds that "A couple of weeks ago we were predicting the wheat in these trials to make around the low to mid 20 bushel per acre range. A lot of wheat in this area was predicted to make that as well. Now, there seems to be a much different story after the storms received the last two evenings." The picture above is of the OSU-Oklahoma Wheat Commissiuon Test Plot east of Okarche. The one just below is also of the Okarche test plots.
The other 2 pictures were taken approximately 9 miles east of Okarche off of the Northwest Expressway Highway. These particular shots are of wheat fields that have been demolished by a tornado that looks to have had a width of anywhere from ½ a mile to ¾ of a mile. Several acres of wheat in the Canadian and Kingfisher County areas will not be harvested because of the excessive damage. Many farms were damaged with hail on Monday night and the storms Tuesday night just created much worse problems for producers.
It is too early to estimate but talking with other elevator managers in this region on the conservative side approximately 20,000 to 30,000 acres have severe damage and most likely at least half of those acres will never be harvested. Producers will also have to worry about dealing with debris from fences and buildings, and will most likely weigh the options of whether or not it would even be feasible to harvest some fields that have so much garbage in them.
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