USA:Crop ‘looks great’ despite the setbacks from Mother Nature

Where it’s good, it’s really good, and where it’s bad, it’s ugly, reported NA “Kazakh-Zerno” with reference to the “The Fence Post“.

That’s the best way to describe the harvest of winter wheat, which got off to a sluggish start in southeast Weld County about a week ago and will slowly work its way north over the next two or three weeks.

Winter wheat has been one of Weld’s more stable and productive crops for decades and in 2009, the state’s production moved into the top three in the nation. Weld has about 130,000 acres of all wheat — including winter and spring — every year, according to the Colorado office of the National Agriculture Statistics Service. That ranks the crop among the top three in terms of acreage and production, for the county.

Neither the U.S. Department of Agriculture nor the Colorado statistics office has released county data for the 2009 winter wheat crop yet, but in 2008, Weld was the fifth largest wheat producing county in Colorado with production of more than 3.6 million bushels based on 121,300 acres being harvested with an average yield of 30 bushels per acre.

But Mother Nature took her toll on the crop this year, as three separate hail storms moved across the southeast part of Weld in June. A large percentage of the crop is grown in that area of the county. The dreaded “white harvester” storms totally destroyed several wheat fields, as well as irrigated crops in an area from Hudson through to Prospect Valley, south of Roggen.

Keith DeVoe, general manager of the Roggen Farmer’s Elevator, which handles the majority of the harvested crop every year — from the Roggen area to Nunn in northern Weld — said those storms could have taken about 1 million bushels out of this year’s production.

“That’s just a guess, but it could be more than that considering the type of crop we’ve seen coming in. We’ve got some really good wheat,” DeVoe said, adding yields have been in the 45-50 bushel per acre range in several cases, so that crop that was not hit by hail is excellent.

Earlier in the year, several wheat farmers dealt with another weather-related problem, wheat stripe rust, which was the result of the cool, wet spring.

Niles Miller, 89, of Platteville said it was the first time he could ever remember seeing the rust in his fields southeast of Platteville. Last week he said much of his brother’s wheat had been harvested, and he expected his to be taken out within the week or so.

“I don’t know what it’s going to do, but I think it will be more or less about the same.” Miller said. But, he added, the wheat “looks great,” and projected early on it may have made upwards of 60 bushels to the acre. He added, however, the rust did spotted damage in several fields, “and even took out some rows (of wheat) in places.” The rust, he said, came just as the heads were starting to fill out on the crop and where the rust is, it stopped or slowed the wheat from maturing.

“It’s been a rather interesting year, not only for the wheat, but for everything,” Miller said.

Darrell Hanavan, executive director of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers, said the onset of hot weather last week was ideal for the wheat crop and predicted “if this weather holds up, we could be two-thirds done with the harvest” statewide by this weekend.

Hanavan said the forecasted state harvest set by the USDA is 92 million bushels, about the same that it was last year, but that production, he added, is coming off 2.3 million acres compared to 2009’s 2.45 million acres.

“The forecast is for a

40 bushel (per acre) yield, but in reality, if things keep going the way they are, that forecast will be raised by one or two bushels. Our all time record was 43 bushels in 1999,” Hanavan said.

His optimism is driven by the fact the southeast Colorado wheat crop is the best in years, and a

50-bushel per acre yield is common in the northeast part of the state. Even some of that crop damaged by the hail in southeast Weld, he added, is getting as much as 27 bushels per acre.

“But there’s some that is getting zero, as well,” he said.

For DeVoe, the busy time of his year was approaching with the hot temperatures that hastened the harvest.

“I call this time of the year football training time when I can get the baby fat off me,” he said with a laugh.

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