Harvest yield reports vary with crop, location

Wheat and barley harvest is nearly finished county-wide, along with peas and lentils. Garbanzo beans harvest has barely begun.

Steve Van Vleet, WSU Regional Extension Specialist, Associate Professor of Agricultural and Natural Resources, based in Colfax, said from the east part of the county to the south, winter and spring wheat yields have been average to good. Test weights also have been good.

But from the north to the west portions of the county, farmers are reporting test weights are average to below average, which means crop prices get docked for meager test weights. Van Vleet said yields are running about average.

He attributes the yields and test weights to the “strange weather we’ve had. We had frost in some parts of the county and then hot weather,” he said. “The rain helped, but the damage was already done.”

He also said barley yields look good.

He said peas and lentils are “doing surprisingly well.”

“I was concerned with blight in the lentils, but it looks like the farmers sprayed and controlled it,” Van Vleet said.

Sam White, Chief Operating Officer of Pacific Northwest Farmers Co-op, which covers the Lewiston Clarkston terminal, north to Thornton, east to Genesee and west to Mockonema, said overall winter wheat is running slightly above average.

Depending on the location and when the garbanzos were seeded, harvesting is started or just about to start, he said.

White said the last couple of years, more farmers are growing garbanzos and fewer peas and lentils.

“Early indications, depending on where and when they were planted, that they are coming in slightly above average,” White said.

“People are very happy about the yields,” he said. “That rain we had in June made that crop finish.”

White also said that crop prices still seem firm. Japan, who quit purchasing U.S. wheat when a small amount of genetically altered wheat was found on an Oregon farm earlier this summer, is back into the marketplace.

Toward the end of September, White said the Midwest corn harvest will start and analysts are looking at a big corn crop.

“We could see our markets pressured a bit,” he said.

“At times, corn and wheat compete for feed,” he said. “It’s a matter of supply and demand.”