SPRINGFIELD, Illinois — This season’s winter wheat crop is again bringing in a record number of bushels per acre at 75 bushels, up from 74 in 2016.
These numbers appear to be the culmination of the mild winter and well-timed rains with wheat farmers consciously improving their wheat crop systems, especially with timely fungicide applications.
The results now include more farmers reporting 100 bushel or more yields throughout more of their acreage, observed Tony Boyle, Southern FS crop specialist.
“We’re starting to see more progressive crop systems at work to really push those bushels,” Boyle said. “Some of them have really latched onto pushing yields by making good decisions with their seed sets and using well-timed fungicide applications. It’s basically very, very good wheat.”
Matt Wehmeyer of AgriMAXX Wheat in Mascoutah also is seeing attributes of a notable harvest.
“Yields have been very good, test weights have been heavy and vomitoxin is not an issue this year. Overall, growers are very happy with their wheat yields, wheat quality and timely harvest. And the wheat price is higher than last year,” Wehmeyer said.
Here are the official numbers released July 12 by the Illinois National Agricultural Statistics Service:
Winter wheat acres planted in 2017 is the same as 2016 at 520,000 acres. The high was in 2008 at 1.2 million acres.
Production is projected at 36.75 million bushels, up from 34.78 in 2016. High: 73.6 in 2008.
About 3,150 producers will receive NASS county estimates questionnaires sent out on July 28 and are critical to calculating accurate Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage formulas that are administered by the Farm Service Agency, said State Statistician Mark Schleusener. The questionnaires focus on wheat and oats only; corn and soybean information will be collected at a later time, he added.
Final state level wheat yields will be published on Sept. 29 while the final county wheat yields will be released on Dec. 14.
Karen Binder can be reached at 618-534-0614 or kbinder@agrinews-pubs.com Follow her on Twitter: @AgNews_Binder.