Kansas Wheat Production Could Be Lowest Since 1996
May 12th, 2011Via: GrainNet:
Two recently completed tours of the Kansas wheat crop confirm what farmers have suspected for some time: the 2011 crop could be one of the worst in many years.
Earlier this month, more than 70 participants of the Wheat Quality Council’s Hard Wheat Tour pegged the Kansas crop to total 256.7 million bushels, averaging about 37 bushels per acre.
That is well shy of last year’s 334 million bushel estimate, despite the fact that farmers planted 800,000 more acres of wheat last fall.
On May 11, Kansas Agriculture Statistics released its own forecast of the 2011 wheat crop.
It estimates farmers will grow 261.8 million bushels, down 27% from last year and the lowest production since 1996.
The KAS predicts farmers will harvest 7.7 million acres, down 300,000 acres from last year and the smallest area harvested since 1957.
“Forty percent of the national rice crop likely won’t be planted this year,” Carter said, citing flooding issues in the Bootheel area of Missouri and Louisiana, two other sizable rice-producing areas.
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