Grain harvesting and planting progress

Farm and Ranch September 24, 2009 The U.S. spring wheat harvest continues and so does planting of winter wheat. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey updates the progress of these activities as they stood at the start of this week.

Rippey: “Spring wheat harvested first of all; 85% harvested; last year 96%; five year average 96%. We finally wrapped it up in South Dakota and Washington state, harvest is complete. But still a good bit of acreage left in the field, North Dakota 77% versus the five year average of 95%. And in the winter wheat planting progress department we have almost a quarter of the wheat in the ground, 24%. That is ahead of last year, 20% but just one point behind the five year average of 25%.”

The main grain harvest activity in the Pacific Northwest remains in Idaho where farmers had just five percent of their spring wheat yet to harvest and just eight percent of the their barley crop.

Winter wheat planting in the Pacific Northwest is running ahead of the average pace with Washington leading the way at 60 percent complete, Oregon at 27 percent seeded and Idaho with 31 percent of its winter wheat planted. Washington reports a lot of reseeding taking place.

The U.S. corn crop remains well behind normal in development with only 21 percent mature compared to the five year average for now of 55 percent.

The most significant delays were evident in Illinois and Indiana, the second and fifth largest corn-producing states.

The potato harvest in Washington is 57 percent complete. In Idaho 15 percent of the spuds have been dug.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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