04/19/05 Winter wheat crop average to better

04/19/05 Winter wheat crop average to better

Farm and Ranch April 19, 2005 Monday's crop progress report from the USDA included a table for the percentage of the U.S. winter wheat crop that is now headed out. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey has the details. Rippey: "For the week ending April 17th, eight percent of the winter wheat headed. Five-year average is 9%. Running at or just behind average in the southern states. Oklahoma 18% headed, 17% is the 5-year average. Texas 19% versus the five-year average of 25%. And while we are talking about winter wheat. Moving to the winter wheat condition remaining a very good picture as a whole across the nation. 69% of the winter wheat crop is rated good to excellent, down just one point from last week, but way ahead of last year when just 46% of the winter wheat crop was rated good to excellent at this time. All in all it's at least an average or better crop." In the Northwest both Idaho and Washington saw increases the percentage of the winter wheat crop rated good to excellent. Oregon's good to excellent rating dropped a couple of points. USDA reports 23 percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop was planted to start the week, six percentage points above the five-year average. Progress is much further along in the Northwest with spring wheat seeding 89 percent complete in Washington, 85 percent in Oregon and 60 percent complete in Idaho. Fourteen percent of the U.S. corn crop was in the ground to start this week. That's slightly behind last year's pace for this time but four percentage points ahead of the five-year average. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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