Winter wheat numbers slated to drop

Winter wheat production in Idaho and Washington is forecast to be down this year from 2022-23, according to a news release from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Based on June 1 conditions, NASS reported, Idaho winter wheat production is expected to be about 60.9 million bushels, down 5% from a year ago. Harvested area, at 700,000 acres, is down 10,000 acres from 2022 and yield is expected to average 87 bushels per acre.

Washington winter wheat production is forecast at 98 million bushels, down 20% from 2022. Harvested area is expected to be 1.75 million acres, down 50,000 acres from last year and yield is forecast at 56 bushels per acre, according to NASS.

Doug Finkelnburg, University of Idaho Extension educator at Nez Perce County, pointed out that those numbers include all of Idaho, not just north central Idaho, and may not be entirely reliable for this area.

“I think that our winter wheat has been challenged in northern Idaho and it makes sense we would see a little less activity,” Finkelnburg said.

Crops planted last fall suffered through periods of an open winter, heat stress and drought stress, he said.

Lower market prices for wheat also may have driven down some planting decisions but Finkelnburg said that reduction in planted acres is more likely to have happened in southern Idaho, where wheat is a rotation crop.

“And our cash crop in northern Idaho is wheat, so we have not that much fluctuation in acres,” he said.

In the lower elevations of Nez Perce County some good-looking fields are situated next to poorer-looking fields, indicating some management choices that may not have panned out.

Farmers often rotate crops on fields where wheat was planted the year before. But sometimes farmers may plant wheat back-to-back, gambling on the chance there will be enough soil moisture in the field to sustain the crop.

This year, Finkelnburg said, “it’s going to bite some people. You’re taking a risk that you’ll get enough moisture for a following crop but this year that was a poor gamble.”

It’s too early to predict when harvest will begin in the lower elevations but Finkelnburg said it normally gets underway shortly before July 4.

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.