Wheat acreage — shrink to ’60s levels?
Oct 28, 2009 11:01 AM, By Mary Hightower, University of Arkansas
“We don’t have any wheat planted and may not plant any at all due to the weather and prices. There is very little interest.”
Arkansas farmers are planting winter wheat, though with continued rain, expectations for the crop are iffy, say extension agents and economists for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
“It has been a tough year to get wheat planted with the never-ending rainfall and late harvest of our summer crops” said Jason Kelley, Extension agronomist for wheat and feed grains for the Division of Agriculture. “Many producers are getting anxious about whether it will dry up soon enough to plant wheat.
“It is not too late to plant wheat, but the optimum planting date is now for much of the state,” Kelley said. “Optimum yields are normally expected from wheat planted in October for north Arkansas and from mid-October to mid-November for south Arkansas.
“We can still have good yields when we plant outside of the optimum planting dates, but yields tend to vary more from year to year, depending on the weather during the rest of the season,” he said.
If weather wasn’t enough of a deterrent, wheat prices were.
“We don’t have any wheat planted and may not plant any at all due to the weather and prices,” said Keith Martin, White County extension agent for the division. “There is very little interest.”
Wheat prices have risen $1 per bushel since Oct. 1, said Scott Stiles, Extension economist-risk management for the Division of Agriculture, adding that “producers could get close to $5, but some areas of the state are not quite at that level yet.
“July wheat futures closed today at $5.67,” he said. “New crop bids were ranging from $4.94 to $5.12 around eastern Arkansas.”
Stiles said he visited with a seed salesman in Stuttgart, Ark., who said “the majority of their wheat seed had gone to Louisiana, Texas and some in the Bootheel of Missouri, Alabama and a little bit in northeastern Arkansas.”
In Lonoke County, Ark., Extension Agent Keith Perkins said there are maybe 500 acres planted. Due to the muddy fields “some wheat was planted by air.”
