Farmers in the Southern Plains are feeling increasingly dismal about the state of their wheat and canola crops as conditions continue to deteriorate due to a harsh winter and dry, windy days.
On Tuesday, a cold front pushed temperatures down into the mid to upper 20s for at least four hours across much of Oklahoma.
Jeff Edwards, small grains specialist with Oklahoma State University, said there was reason for concern, although areas that had received moisture and had healthy stands were expected to be the most resilient. He said farmers should start watching for the telltale bleached or yellow wheat heads indicating freeze injury in the coming days.
“After seeing how things recovered after everything we went through last year, I’m hopeful the crop can come out of it,” said Mike Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission. “But I think the crop is more stressed now than it was at this time last year.”
“From what I’ve heard from farmers in northwest Oklahoma, if we’d had rain this weekend, they could have salvaged a lot of it. But now they are not so sure,” he added.
Nationwide, farmers planted an estimated 41.9 million acres of winter wheat last fall, down 3 percent from the previous year. Wheat acreage was up considerably in Colorado, but lower in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Wheat crop development is lagging behind normal by about two weeks due to a cool spring and lack of moisture. According to ratings made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the crop’s condition has plummeted since late March. Much of the crop is now considered to be in poor to very poor condition, including more than 60 percent of the Texas crop, more than 40 percent of the Oklahoma crop, a quarter of the Kansas crop and a third of the Colorado crop.
Canola officials gathering for a field day at a farm west of Oklahoma City near El Reno on Tuesday were also weighing the impact of the freeze. An estimated 400,000 acres across the state are planted to canola this year, and most of those fields are now in full bloom. Some plants already froze out last fall after getting off to a late start and then getting hit by a blast of record-breaking cold over the winter.
“I think it’s just wait and see,” said Ron Sholar, the executive director of the Great Plains Canola Association. “Last year there were fields that took a pretty good pounding that came out of it and still produced pretty well.”
Sholar said some stands were thin and estimated the plants were half as tall as they would normally be this time of year.
On Tuesday, a cold front pushed temperatures down into the mid to upper 20s for at least four hours across much of Oklahoma.
Jeff Edwards, small grains specialist with Oklahoma State University, said there was reason for concern, although areas that had received moisture and had healthy stands were expected to be the most resilient. He said farmers should start watching for the telltale bleached or yellow wheat heads indicating freeze injury in the coming days.
“After seeing how things recovered after everything we went through last year, I’m hopeful the crop can come out of it,” said Mike Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission. “But I think the crop is more stressed now than it was at this time last year.”
“From what I’ve heard from farmers in northwest Oklahoma, if we’d had rain this weekend, they could have salvaged a lot of it. But now they are not so sure,” he added.
Nationwide, farmers planted an estimated 41.9 million acres of winter wheat last fall, down 3 percent from the previous year. Wheat acreage was up considerably in Colorado, but lower in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Wheat crop development is lagging behind normal by about two weeks due to a cool spring and lack of moisture. According to ratings made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the crop’s condition has plummeted since late March. Much of the crop is now considered to be in poor to very poor condition, including more than 60 percent of the Texas crop, more than 40 percent of the Oklahoma crop, a quarter of the Kansas crop and a third of the Colorado crop.
Canola officials gathering for a field day at a farm west of Oklahoma City near El Reno on Tuesday were also weighing the impact of the freeze. An estimated 400,000 acres across the state are planted to canola this year, and most of those fields are now in full bloom. Some plants already froze out last fall after getting off to a late start and then getting hit by a blast of record-breaking cold over the winter.
“I think it’s just wait and see,” said Ron Sholar, the executive director of the Great Plains Canola Association. “Last year there were fields that took a pretty good pounding that came out of it and still produced pretty well.”
Sholar said some stands were thin and estimated the plants were half as tall as they would normally be this time of year.