Timely spring moisture has converted Colorado wheat from a borderline disaster earlier this year to a near-average crop. What’s more, farmers are likely to enjoy record prices when they sell their harvested grain.
The outlook had been troubling in the first quarter of this year, when parched fields were yielding stunted wheat shoots. But spring snows and rains gave some late relief.
Agricultural researchers now predict that the Colorado winter-wheat harvest will be 64.5 million bushels, just under the state’s 10-year average of 67 million bushels.
At a projected record price of $7.50 a bushel, the harvest will be valued at $483.8 million. That’s 48 percent higher than the inflation-adjusted average value of $327.1 million.
“If you have an average crop in an above-average price environment, then that’s a pretty good situation,” said Darrell Hanavan, executive director of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers.
Prices are high chiefly because of drought-withered crops in major wheat states Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Colorado’s national ranking in wheat production was fifth in 2010, second in 2009 and 11th in 2008.
Poor wheat crops this year in Europe will increase demand for U.S. wheat exports, pushing prices up.
High prices “make you feel really good — if you have something to grow,” said Mark Linnebur, whose family farms wheat east of metro Denver.
“A month or two ago, it looked very bleak because we needed moisture to finish the crop,” Linnebur said. “The moisture helped, but the crop is still going to be a third less than last year.”
Farmers say wheat crops will be relatively good in northeastern Colorado but poor in the southeastern part of the state, which has received less winter and spring moisture.
Most of Colorado’s crop is winter wheat — a dryland, or nonirrigated, crop planted in September and October. With sufficient moisture, the wheat germinates in the fall, then goes dormant in winter. It begins another growth cycle in spring until the harvest in July.
About 80 percent of Colorado’s wheat is exported to Europe and Asia. Most of the remaining 20 percent goes to wheat mills in Commerce City and Platteville for use in bread and rolls.
Changes in wheat prices seldom have much effect on retail food prices because the wheat content in food items is a relatively small part of total manufacturing and marketing costs.
“Farmers get a bad rap when people think that high commodity prices mean high food prices,” Linnebur said. “But there’s only 15 or 20 cents of wheat in a loaf of bread. So the price we pay on the shelf should not reflect that much of an increase.”
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
