Prairie farmers are expected to seed about 440,000 acres of winter wheat in the next three weeks as more producers are attracted by the crop’s good yield potential and improved varieties.
About 420,000 acres of the crop have just been harvested and results generally look good.
Although price, which in the past rarely surpassed No. 3 CW red spring wheat, has long been a sore spot for winter wheat producers, markets are looking up.
Bob Linnell, executive manager of Winter Cereals Canada, said some American markets and regional Canadian millers are paying premiums for higher-protein crops, such as the harvest produced this year, which has provided “plenty of 13.5 (percent protein).”
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The past two years have seen hog feeders, anxious to control price and feed quality, offering production contracts that in some cases rose to $5 per bushel, surpassing export prices for top grade CWRS varieties.
“Even at $3 a bushel, a 70 bu. (per acre) crop looks pretty good when you don’t have to pay for (in-crop) spraying,” said Linnell, who noted that disease and insect pressure is usually lighter on fall-seeded wheat.
“And we haven’t seen the top of the yield curve on winter wheat at 70 bushels (per acre). One hundred is possible. Plenty have come close.”
Ron Gares of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration in Dauphin, Man., said producers in southern Manitoba enjoyed high yields this year, especially in the Red River Valley.
“It was a little tougher for those in the northwest and west-central. They seeded later and a wet, cool fall and a rough winter meant a lot of winterkills. But those conditions aren’t the norm either.”
The crop is becoming more popular in southern Manitoba because of its early June flowering stage that avoids fusarium.
Linnell thinks a change in farmer attitude toward fall-seeded crops needs to take place before large numbers of producers make the switch.
Added Gare: “(The) roughest part are those days when farmers might have to shut the combine off for day or two and go seeding. They don’t like that change.”
He said the rise in the number of custom seeding businesses is already improving that situation “because now a guy doesn’t have to leave the combine. He can pay $8 to $10 an acre and somebody will do it for him.
“It’s a different crop. Like the first time you grew flax or canola or lentils. It has different management needs, but it can make money and despite that, producers seem more likely to try other crops before winter wheat.”
This year, many producers are concerned that their fall-seeded cereals will be sown into fields with little or no subsoil moisture and an abundance of grasshoppers.
Linnell said producers shouldn’t be too concerned about those problems, but Gares feels each farmer needs to look carefully at the moisture available and avoid fields where there are too many grasshoppers.
“Seeding winter cereals into dry ground is nothing new,” he said.
“September is usually a rainy sort of month, with a few showers, but you do need some moisture for those plants … and grasshoppers can do a lot of damage to winter wheat. New shoots in fall are pretty popular.”
He said adequate moisture and growing conditions are needed during the four weeks when the plants crown and produce a winter’s supply of roots.
“Even in the dry areas we see good response when the crop is in early,” Gares said.
“If it is late and dry or too cold, that is when it is a problem.”
Linnell recommended seeding into stubble between the end of August and Sept. 15 in the southern grain belt, and earlier in the north.
“If producers are seeding into lentil or pea stubble that is non-existent, then they should consider bumping up the seeding rate from that two bu. range to 2.5 or about 25 percent,” he said.
“The goal is a 25 to 30 plants (per square metre) survival and if there is a higher risk of winter kill then the seeding rate needs to be increased.”
