05/31/06 Rains help NW wheat but U.S. ratings drop

Farm and Ranch May 31, 2006 Recent rains have benefited most of the winter wheat in the Pacific Northwest but the storms that brought it also caused some damage. Oregon's weekly crop weather bulletin reports about five-thousand acres of wheat and or barley in Sherman County was laid waste by hail. Still, overall 67 percent of Oregon's winter wheat is rated in good to excellent condition with only eight percent poor to very poor. Idaho's crop is 83 percent good to excellent with only four percent poor to very poor. And in Washington the winter wheat is 77 percent good to excellent and four percent poor to very poor. The region is in sharp contrast to the Plains where USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says winter wheat conditions continue to deteriorate. Rippey: "Plains states a real drag on the crop condition. Twenty-eight percent good to excellent nationally. Now 46% very poor to poor. Those numbers are week ago, 30 and 42 percent respectively." And that compares to a year ago of national good to excellent ratings of 48 percent and just sixteen percent very poor to poor. Rippey: "The very poor to poor numbers ranging from 25% of the crop in Montana all the way up to 82% of the crop in Texas." The U.S. spring wheat crop however is rated 73 percent good to excellent which is a slight decline from last week and slightly below last year's ratings at this time. Eight-three percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop was planted at the start of this week. Ninety seven percent of the U.S. corn crop has been planted and emergence is at 85 percent. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.