Wheat and More….or less
By Vance Ehmke
If you’re looking for seed wheat, rye or triticale to plant this fall, you might want to start looking sooner rather than later.
One of the consequences of having the worst Kansas wheat crop in the past 50 to 60 years is that the supply of seed wheat will be much shorter than normal. The tight seed supply situation also affects triticale and especially rye. Prices will also be higher. And, in cases, much higher.
In addition to reduced new crop yields with the ’23 crop, the amount of carryover certified seed from last year is at extremely low levels, according to Steve Schuler, Kansas Crop Improvement Association.
He notes that normal certified seed wheat carryover runs about 800,000 bushels. “This year it’s only 183,000 bushels.” And that makes new crop production all the more important. But for many Kansas certified seed wheat producers yields of 20 and 30 bushels per acre were far more common than the
normal 40, 50 and 60-bushel per acre yields.
While the supply of certified seed is smaller, likely the demand is higher. For instance, many Kansas wheat growers harvested no wheat whatsoever because of the drought and later hail storms or because they abandoned their crop because of poor stands or because weeds simply took the crop. Too, many
hauled their crop to the elevator because of concerns about quality issues like head sprouting, high moisture contents, low test weights and weed contamination. Other farmers need additional supplies of seed wheat because they fallowed the acres they abandoned this spring and will plant back to wheat
this fall.
Commercial seed cleaner Rusty Swonger, Minneola, KS says, “It’s just flat ugly”. His seed wheat cleaning jobs are off easily 35 to 50%. Not only that but Swonger is concerned about the quality of seed wheat he is cleaning. For instance, while cleaning for one farmer, he noticed the grain was already hot because it
was harvested at too high of a moisture content, then heated in the bin. “And that heat can destroy the ability for the seed to germinate.”
Swonger says other things to be concerned about with seed that was saved for fall planting include high loads of weed seed, grain that had sprouted in the head or seed that could have low germination because pre harvest herbicide treatments were applied too early before hard dough. “All of these things
point out the need for having germination and quality tests on your seed especially if it’s home produced. These tests have already been done on certified seed,” he says.
Co-worker Caleb O’Hanlon says the seed situation is even more critical with triticale and rye. His seed cleaning jobs have easily been cut in half because this year’s rye and triticale production was so poor.
O’Hanlon cites one example of a rye grower who normally produces 40,000 to 50,000 bushels but this year he binned just 15,000 bushels because of the drought. Other low-yielding fields were abandoned this spring because of severe weed infestations.
A major north central Kansas seed dealer says supplies of rye are almost non-existent. And prices reflect that with asking prices on some rye running $20/bushel and more. And while seed wheat prices are also higher because of the shortage, on the upper end some wheat prices are running between $25 and
$30/bushel. However, other certified seed wheat growers like Orville Williams from Montezuma KS feels a strong obligation to long term customers to hold the line as much as possible on prices. But neither can you overlook the supply realities with production of many popular varieties cut by 50 to 75% in
cases. “Many of us just don’t have a lot to sell.”
Yet another western Kansas certified seed wheat grower says he’s almost afraid to put out ads on his seed. “We were already getting calls 2 to 6 months ago from farmers looking for seed knowing they were going to need it because of the drought. Several of these farmers produced no wheat whatsoever
and will have to buy everything they plant.”
On the optimistic side, Tyler Benninghoven with Plains Gold says seed wheat growers in northeastern Colorado had very good crops. “Thus, many of the Colorado State University varieties could find their way into Kansas fields this fall. A lot of the dryland wheat in this region yielded 50 to 70 bushels per acre
with some irrigated running as high as 105 to 115 bushels per acre,” he says.
Benninghoven cautions, though, about farmers selling wheat to their neighbors for planting. “Most of the current wheat varieties are PVP protected so farmer-to-farmer sales are illegal though in most cases the farmer is allowed to plant back on his own land,” he concludes.