U.S. rains unlikely to help smallest Oklahoma wheat crop since 2014
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Rains this week within the U.S. Plains arrived too late to assist a lot of the winter wheat in Oklahoma, the No. 2 U.S. producer of the grain, the place farmers will quickly start harvesting the smallest crop in eight years, a state wheat official stated Thursday.
“Sadly I do assume it’s a little too late in most situations for us,” Mike Schulte, government director of the Oklahoma Wheat Fee, stated of this week’s precipitation.
A crop shortfall in Oklahoma provides to a dire world wheat provide image, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shut down ports and knocked the No. 5 exporter off the market.
The fee this week projected Oklahoma’s winter wheat crop at 57.05 million bushels, about half the scale of final yr’s crop and the smallest since 2014. The fee forecast a median winter wheat yield of 23.5 bushels per acre, additionally the state’s lowest since 2014.
About 69% of the U.S. crop was in an space experiencing drought as of Might 3, the USDA has stated, together with most main wheat areas of Oklahoma and high producer Kansas.
Drought shriveled Oklahoma’s wheat throughout March and April, the crop’s key development interval, leaving sparse-looking vegetation with few tillers, or stems, particularly in southwest Oklahoma and the Panhandle, Schulte stated. A couple of areas are in respectable form in south- and north-central Oklahoma, he stated.
Heavy rains this week might truly threaten the state’s wheat by both knocking over mature vegetation and making them tough to reap, or elevating the chance of ailments for vegetation which can be nonetheless growing.
The crop shortfall is irritating for growers provided that Okay.C. exhausting crimson winter wheat futures are buying and selling above $11 a bushel this spring for the primary time since 2008.
“With excessive commodity costs, I believe there is a false impression that our wheat producers are going to be doing extraordinarily nicely this yr. The very fact of the matter is, if they do not have a crop to take to market, they do not get to profit,” Schulte stated.
(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen; Modifying by David Gregorio)
