Harest 2011 most bountiful on record

Make it a record harvest... officially.

The long, cool, wet spring resulted in the highest wheat yields ever produced in Washington state.

The Washington field office of the Agricultural Statistics Service reported this week both winter and spring wheat set new records for average yields.

Area grain brokers told the Gazette last week bumper crops reported by farmers across Whitman County with winter wheat reports exceeding triple digits and spring wheat yields hitting 70 bushels per acre.

In the state report, Linda Simpson of the statistics service said winter wheat averaged a yield of 75 bushels per acre throughout the state, topping the previous record of 73 bushels per acre from the 2000 crop.

Though the late season pushed back planting, spring wheat yields averaged 61 bushels an acre, a marked increase over the 1984 record yield of 55 bushels per acre.

Those high yields produced a statewide total of more than 167 million bushels, up almost 20 million from the 2010 harvest.

Winter wheat production, of which 85 percent of the 2011 crop was soft white wheat, ranked Washington behind only Kansas in national winter wheat rankings. For overall wheat production, the state was fourth.

Barley production also increased over last year. Average yield for barley was 72 bushels per acre, the same as the 2010 crop, but the number of harvested acres of barley was up 42 percent. That put the total amount of Washington state barley production at 8.2 million bushels, fourth highest in the nation.