09/06/05 2005 soft white wheat crop quality

Farm and Ranch September 6, 2005 Prices may be depressed but the quality of the 2005 soft white wheat crop in the Pacific Northwest appears to be good. Dave Shelton is the director of the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland where samples are processed weekly during harvest. Shelton: "So far we have seen 309 samples of wheat we have analyzed and we are finding that 65% of those samples are in excess of 60 pounds per bushel so that means it will grade number one. Test weight excites the millers overseas and domestically because that is an indication of flour extraction, in otherwords how much flour they get out a given quantity of wheat. The other thing we are seeing this year is protein content. The average protein content is similar or maybe even a bit less this year for our soft white than in the past year and that is encouraging because our buyers tend to pay a premium for low protein wheat in any given year." Last year's crop averaged 10.4 % protein and the cumulative average for samples processed so far this year is 9.9% Shelton says it has been a relatively dry harvest so the crop has good falling numbers too. That's a measurement for potential sprout damage. Shelton: "Also this year 70% of the crop is less than nine percent moisture content. And 9% moisture content again adds value to the millers of our wheat and gives them a greater profit margin." The Wheat Marketing Center will also be doing milling and baking tests. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.