By Tom Collins
Growers weren’t as high on winter wheat as industry experts, planting many fewer acres than anticipated.
Many expected growers would challenge the 1.225 million winter wheat acre record from 2007 because of an almost perfect winter wheat planting season. But instead, just less than a million acres were planted this year.
While it’s still the third largest winter wheat planting of the last 30 years and up from the 660,000 acres planted last year, Realagriculture.com agronomist Peter Johnson said he was disappointed with the numbers, chalking up the lower-than-expected numbers to the steady increase of corn yields.
“At the end of the day, corn yields have just progressed so much that the economics drive more corn acres and growers like soybeans because they rotate well with corn,” said Johnson, adding that it is short-sighted to not include wheat in the rotation as it improves corn and soybean yields. “A lot of growers have just decided they are going to have a predominately corn/soybean rotation and throw wheat in there some of the time.”
