Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, is talking with Oklahoma Wheat Commission’s Mike Schulte about an overview of this year’s hard red winter wheat harvest in Oklahoma. With close to 90 percent of the state complete with harvest, Schulte said this year’s crop was around two weeks ahead of schedule from normal.
The weather presented a few challenges at the beginning of harvest for some parts of the state, but they were able to pick back up and keep harvest rolling, producing high-quality wheat to be marketed. Moisture was a common trend in this year’s harvest, causing a few pauses along the way for producers.
“We might get an inch to three-tenths of moisture, then it would dry out and producers would get to cut the next day, then we would get the same thing the following day,” Schulte said. “Every other day, producers were going out into the field in southwest and central Oklahoma. Despite those challenges, we are still far ahead of schedule compared to where we are on the five-year average for USDA.”
In the latest crop progress report released from USDA-NASS, winter wheat harvested reached 83 percent (slightly lower than Oklahoma Wheat Commission’s estimate at 87 percent), up 35 points from the previous week and up 46 points from normal (Last year was 40 percent).
Talking with elevator managers and individual producers, Schulte said most are saying with the help of some rains in April and May, along with high-quality genetics, the crop yielded better than some expected.
“I am hearing a lot of yields in the mid-40s to mid-50s in southern Oklahoma up into northern Oklahoma,” Schulte said. “There are those instances few and far between where we have some really intensive management producers that have tried to push the yield envelope with the inputs of the crop. In those areas, it was not uncommon to have some 70- and 80-bushel yields. I have heard of some as high as 90 and maybe 110. Again, those are few and far between instances where they really put the inputs to the crop.”
Hitting again on those high-quality genetics, Schulte commended the ability of the varieties planted this year to produce great yields, protein and to withstand drought and disease.
“Overall, the quality of the crop is going to be good from this region and certainly something millers and bakers are going to want to take a look at when we go into that marketing here in the future once we get the crop quality summaries out from U.S. Wheat in September,” Schulte said.
Based on his observations and what he has heard around the state, Schulte also talked about the latest USDA Crop Production report which estimated Oklahoma to yield 38 bushels per acre, up 10 bushels from last year.
“I think we will be better than 38 (bushels per acre) just based off of what we have heard,” Schulte said. “I want to go ahead and try to be positively optimistic for that, so I am going to say 40 to 42. I think it is maybe going to be even closer to 42 than 40.”
To view the latest Oklahoma Wheat Commission harvest report released on June 17, click here. The next Oklahoma Wheat Commission Harvest report will be published on Thursday, June 19, 2024.
