Record acreage for one Washington crop

Washington Ag Today July 1, 2010 Just what and how much of what did Washington farmers plant for this year’s harvest?

Knopf: “Winter wheat, corn, hay, dry edible bean acres increased over last year‘s plantings while spring wheat and barley acres are down slightly.”

That’s David Knopf who heads up the Washington Field Office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service providing an overview of the June Planted Acreage report issued Wednesday.

The 1.7 million acres of winter wheat the state’s farmers are expected to harvest is up five percent from 2009 while spring wheat acres at 560-thousand is down five percent. And when it comes to barley:

Knopf: “Unfortunately barley acreage has dropped below that 100-thousand acre mark and doesn‘t seem to be any prospects of that trend turning around anytime soon from what I can see.”

Washington farmers only planted 85-thousand acres of barley.

Now, Washington is not a major corn growing state but Knopf tells us;

Knopf: “We also achieved a record high corn planted acreage for Washington this year at 220-thousand acres for the state. That is up from 170-thousand acres last year.”

All dry hay for harvest in the state is pegged at 850-thousand acres, 40-thousand above last year but that includes 60-thousand fewer acres of alfalfa.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.