(Agrimoney) – Results from the early US winter wheat harvest highlighted the poor quality of early cuts, with both levels well below average, and test weights depressed by “unrelenting rain” and disease.
The hard red winter wheat cut so far has come in with protein levels averaging 12.2%, well below the three-year average of 13.5% for results from this time of year, according to data from US Wheat Associates.
For test weight, the measure of mass of grain per given volume, the result of 58.4 pounds per bushel (76.9 kilogrammes per hectolitre) is also unusually low compared with early readings from other recent harvests.
The comparisons must be treated with some caution, as they were taken only from 35 samples – out of an expected 530 for the whole season – and at a time when significant progress has only be made in two states, Oklahoma and Texas.
These states have been particularly affected by the heavy rains which, while resolving long-term soil moisture deficits, came too late in many areas to boost grain-fill, and have instead promoted disease and quality worries.
However, on protein, Oklahoma and Texas have historically produced some of the highest figures, with early results exceeding the average for the overall US hard red winter wheat crop in each of the previous three years.
‘Unrelenting rain, disease…’
US Wheat Associates said that test weights had in some cases come in as low as 57 pounds a bushel, equivalent to 75.1 kilogrammes per hectolitre, with the best ones so far showing at 59 pounds (77.6 kilogrammes per hectolitre) still below those of any of the past three years.
“The lower test weights reported in some areas are attributed not just to the unrelenting rain in recent weeks, but to disease, mainly stripe rust, during the final stages of development,” said the group, which is responsible for promoting US wheat exports.
The comments tally with observations from other commentators, including Jackie Rudd, a wheat expert at Texas A&M University.
“We almost always have rust somewhere in Texas,” Dr Rudd said on Friday.
“But this year, there’s not a field in Texas that I’ve experienced that has not been affected by at least one of these” rust diseases.
‘Few reports of sprout damage’
However, US Wheat Associates highlighted that, on some other scores, this year’s harvest had not proved unusually poor so far.
“Despite the rainfall, there still are few reports of visible sprout damage, and the initial samples tested do not have higher than normal levels of damage,” the group said.
Defective kernels, at 2.0%, are lower than the 2.2% at this period in 2013, while the proportion of those termed “shrunken and broken”, at 1.3%, is lower than at this stage of 2013 or 2012.
It also noted that harvest was only “just getting started” in Kansas, the top wheat-producing state, and where some commentators believe that, with its crops later developing than those further south, rainfall may have proved more beneficial than in Oklahoma and Texas.
‘Particularly anxious’
Still, there is no information yet on the levels of toxic fungal residues in winter wheat, which stand likely to be promoted by disease and which, in high enough concentrations, can render grain unfit for human and even livestock consumption.
“Traders are particularly anxious about DON, or vomitoxin, levels in the wheat,” traders at a major commodities house said.
“There are already significant stocks of old crop wheat in the US with the same problem, possibly being carried over in the hope of blending away with new crop supplies.”
Weather prospects
The comments come as rains continue to test the US harvest, with weekly US Department of Agriculture data later expected to underline a pace well behind the average so far.
In fact, according to Allendale, precipitation in the southern Plains “was at or below expectations over the weekend”, implying some potential for catch-up.
Weather service MDA forecast that “moderate to heavy showers in south eastern [Plains] areas will increase wetness and flooding concerns.
However, the outlook for next week is “drier in southern wheat areas” than it was on Friday.
