Thursday, August 25, 2011

Record drought threatens future wheat crop prospects

Bottom of Livestock Pond
Dry weather already has cut output of hard, red winter wheat, the most common U.S. variety, by 22 percent from 2010, government data show. If drought persists into the planting months of September and October, next year's harvest will be even smaller and prices on the Kansas City Board of Trade may jump 50 percent to $13 a bushel, said Dan Manternach, a wheat economist with researcher Doane Advisory Services in St. Louis. Oklahoma has had the driest 10-month period on record, and July was the hottest ever for the state, according to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. "We are in a situation where we have been extremely dry for coming close to a year," said Mike Schulte, the executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission in Oklahoma City. "If we get ourselves into a situation where we don't receive rain even by October, then we will have problems." The nation's winter-wheat harvest was 94 percent complete, as of Aug. 21, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency estimates production of the hard, red winter variety at 794.4 million bushels, down from 1.018 billion in 2010. Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas were the biggest growers of winter wheat in 2010 and supplied 28 percent of all wheat varieties produced in the U.S...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Drought+government regs = your next meal start from a sewage plant.