Agricultural News
Harvest May Arrive Early this Year as Wheat Crops Rapidly Mature in Unseasonably Warm Weather
Wed, 19 Apr 2017 15:56:13 CDT
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."
Furthermore, Hodges believes there is more to this crop's condition than meets the eye. Despite whatever unknown factors are at play here, Hodges says that taking into consideration less planted acres and some concern over stripe rust and wheat streak mosaic, there still remains a good chance for a decent harvest. Although he admits, 'average' has been a bit of a moving target lately. But he predicts this crop may yield somewhere below 100 million bushels.
"I really do think there's other things going on with the crop that maybe we haven't identified," Hodges speculated. "Right now, I'm kind of hoping for an average crop. I think the potential is there depending on what happens from here to harvest."
Hodges will join Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays for his weekly In the Field segment on KWTV News9 in the Oklahoma City area on Saturday morning at 6:40 a.m.
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