GRAPEVINE, Texas – Year after year Ron Suppes has been planting fewer acres of wheat on his Kansas farm.
When he does decide to grow the crop, it is because wheat is an effective weed control crop that provides a good soil base for planting sorghum or corn the following year.
“It’s a sad situation because my family is, if you go way back, nothing but wheat farmers,” said the past chair of U.S. Wheat Associates.
“It kind of breaks your heart when you have to grow something other than what you’re used to.”
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Kansas is still a major wheat producing state but the crop is continually losing ground to the expanding corn belt, an invasion that will be exacerbated by the anticipated 2010 introduction of the first lines of drought tolerant corn.
Wheat is having a tough time fighting back against new lines of yield-boosting genetically modified corn and soybean. Seed technology providers backed away from the wheat industry in 2004 when growers rejected the introduction of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready wheat.
Grower organizations face an uphill battle trying to convince companies they are now ready to embrace GM wheat with open arms.
So for the time being, the wheat industry is going to have to find another way to prevent further erosion of its land base.
“In order for wheat to get enough acreage, its price has to go up relative to corn,” said U.S. Wheat Associates Alan Tracy.
He believes $6 per bushel wheat is not lucrative enough to convince growers to plant the quantities buyers require.
“Prices over the next two or three years are going to have to be a little higher than they are right now.”
Suppes said wheat is priced off corn these days. If corn sells for $3.50 per bu., wheat needs to be at least $6 per bu. to move per acre revenue up to a competitive level.
American wheat growers also face competition from producers in other parts of the world.
It can be easily grown in many countries, and acreage and production increase when prices rise, leading to healthy surpluses that lower prices in a hurry, which is what happened late last year.
Suppes said the long-term solution is to embrace GM wheat and its yield-boosting benefits.
“Those traits have to not only help our producers but they have to be acceptable to our customers,” he said.
“If we could come up with both, that would be wonderful.”
