Some growers may shift to barley, but weather interferes

By SEAN ELLIS

Capital Press

The persistent cold, wet spring weather in Idaho is making it a challenge for a lot of farmers to get their spring wheat crop in the ground.

"It's having a really big impact on wheat planting," said Soda Springs farmer Scott Brown, a member of the Idaho Grain Producers Association's executive committee. "It's a very strange year."

The Idaho Wheat Commission is forecasting Idaho growers will produce a bumper crop of 107 million bushels of winter and spring wheat, which would be the highest total in more than 10 years. But with the weather refusing to cooperate with many farmers' planting intentions, that prediction looks shaky.

"Now the weather has tempered that prediction somewhat," said IGPA Executive Director Travis Jones. "It's not going to be as robust as some of the data collectors are predicting at this point."

The situation is most pronounced in north and southeast Idaho, and a decent number of wheat farmers in those areas are assumed to have taken advantage of a prevented planting provision in their insurance polices that reimburses them when weather prevents expected plantings.

The USDA deadline to take advantage of that policy was May 15.

"Very few people (in this area) got spring wheat planted by the deadline," Brown said. "I'm sure quite a few people did take advantage of it."

Brown said he'll probably take advantage of the prevented planting provisions on a small number of acres -- the benefit paid to growers shrinks 1 percent each day after the deadline -- but will plant barley on most of his acres instead.

It's the same situation for Jerry Brown, another wheat and barley farmer in the Soda Springs area in southeast Idaho.

"I'll probably switch to planting barley because it's just getting too late for spring wheat," said Jerry Brown, a member of the IWC board. "The rain has definitely affected our ability to get spring wheat in the ground."

But with rain in the forecast the next 10 days, both Browns aren't sure if the weather will cooperate before the June 10 prevented planting insurance deadline for barley.

"If it rains for the next 10 days, it's going to put us up against that deadline, too," Scott Brown said May 16.

The IGPA surveyed members last week about their planting progress and Jones expects that a number of farmers in north Idaho also took advantage of the prevented planting insurance deadline.

"Because of the rain, they couldn't even get into their fields," he said.

According to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, Idaho farmers are expected to plant a total of 1.49 million acres of winter and spring wheat this season, which would be a 6 percent increase from last year.

Winter wheat seedings were 830,000 acres, up 11 percent from the 2010 crop. Spring wheat plantings were expected to reach 640,000 acres, which would be a 2 percent jump.

According to NASS, 78 percent of the state's spring wheat crop was planted as of Sunday, well below the five-year average of 91 percent for that date.