05/17/06 Spring planting and winter wheat update

Farm and Ranch May 16, 2006 Spring cereal planting was moving closer to completion in the Pacific Northwest with the recent drier weather. At the start of this week farmers had sowed 98 percent of their spring wheat in Oregon, 96 percent in Washington and 90 percent in Idaho. Barley seeding was 94 percent complete in Oregon, 90 percent done in Washington, 81 percent planted in Idaho. Tim McGreevy of the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council says planting of pulses has moved along too. McGreevy: "Well the good news that over the past couple of weeks the growers got to it and got the product in the ground. We estimate that we are probably 90% completed on all dry pea, lentil and chickpea planting this spring in this region. And we had super good soil moisture going into it so the weather is warming up a little bit and we are going to see these peas and lentils popping out of the ground here in pretty short order." Nationally, 79 percent of the U.S. spring wheat crop has been planted and that's seven points ahead of the five year average. Barley and corn planting nationally are also ahead of average. The U.S. winter wheat crop this week was rated 36 percent good to excellent, up a point from last week with 38 percent very poor to poor. The majority of northwest winter wheat is in good to excellent condition with very little in the poor to very poor category. Sixteen percent of Washington's winter wheat is headed or beyond with five percent headed in Oregon and three percent in Idaho. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.