spring wheat

Heading of the nation's winter wheat crop continues to move northward.   “By April 27th, we saw more than a quarter, 27%, of the U.S. winter wheat headed," said USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey.  "That’s ahead of the five-year average of 22%, but slightly behind last year's 28%.”   Rippey added hea...

Over the past two weeks, Washington State University crews have been touring the state, looking for stripe rust.  School officials say so far stripe rust has only been found in WSU disease monitoring and germplasm screening fields in various locations except those around Pullman.  On...

Not a lot of changes to report in USDA’s April global wheat production forecast.  But, there was some activity of note in the world wheat supply and demand ledger.   “In particular, we reduced Chinas wheat imports by three million tons this month, which brings them down to only 3.5 million tons of feed exp...

According to the latest forecast released by Washington State University, stripe rust is forecasted in the low epidemic range for the eastern Pacific Northwest.  Low epidemic range, meaning a 1%-20% yield loss, is anticipated for the 2025 growing season, based on the predication models using the weather data from November 2024 to February 2025.  WSU’s m...

Idaho grain farmers warned that conditions appear “optimal” for pressure from Stripe Rust.  University of Idaho cereals pathologist Juliet Marshall made those comments during the recent East Idaho Cereals Conference in Fort Hall.  She explained preva...

Fusarium head blight is becoming a greater struggle for wheat growers across the Northwest.  BASF recently rolled out a new fungicide, Sphaerex, which can help in the fight.  Kim Tutor, Technical Marketing Manager at BASF said Sphaerex combines two proven active ingredients.   "It's the best produ...

As wheat growers look forward to the 2025 season, Bayer is reminding producers about the performance of their Westbred varieties.  Carrie Roach, Westbred Marketing Manager said they were proud to learn that 12 of the 26 winners of the 2024 National Wheat Yield contests used Westbred.  And sev...

The 2024 season was a struggle for many wheat growers across the Northwest.  Cat Salois with the McGregor Company said yields were “OK” thanks to precipitation that was just “OK” throughout the year.  She noted while late winter and early spring snow and rainfall was good for the region, April, May and June were all very dry months which hurt many spring wheat crops.   As growers focus on making t

The 2024 growing season has been a challenging one and a stressful one for many wheat growers across the region.  And add to the typical stress that farmers face is a lack of a Farm Bill which is months overdue.  Michelle Hennings, Executive Director of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers says between the high cost of fuel, equipment, repairs and fertilizer it's going to be a difficult yea

As growers nationwide start to wind down spring wheat harvest, the USDA is out with a look at this year’s crop.  USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey said as of Sunday August 25th, 51% of the crop has been cut, which is just slightly behind the five-year average for 53% for this time of year; but ahead of last year’s 50%.  As far as individua...