05/24/05 National winter wheat ratings down again

Farm and Ranch May 24, 2005 The saying is "rain makes grain" and the recent moisture in the Pacific Northwest has the latest USDA weekly crop ratings showing Oregon's winter wheat crop improving from 54 percent good to excellent last week to 64 percent this week. Idaho's winter wheat rating in the good to excellent category is unchanged at 95 percent while Washington actually slipped one point to 76 percent good to excellent. Nationally, USDA meteorologist Mark Brusberg, says winter wheat ratings are down again. Brusberg: "And we are continuing to see the crop condition declining. Good to excellent is 52%. That is down four points from last week's good to excellent rating. And the biggest drop this week was in Kansas. We saw a ten percentage point decline out of the good to excellent category. Colorado was about eight and Nebraska was about four. So we are starting to see the effect the heat of dryness on the southern and central high Plains as well." Brusberg says 71 percent of the U.S. winter wheat crop has headed, just a couple of points behind average for this time. At the start of this week 42 percent of Oregon's winter wheat was headed, 35 percent of Washington's, none of Idaho's. As for spring wheat, Brusberg says; Brusberg: "Spring wheat is 94% planted. That is ahead of the 5-year average pace of 87%. They have got about 75% of the crop emerged. That is ahead of the average pace." Planting of the U.S. corn crop at 66 percent complete is right on the five-year. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.