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August 11, 2007

Quality seed wheat hard to come by

By Veronica Scoggins Staff Writer

Seed wheat is going to be hard to find and expensive to get after rain ruined most of this year’s harvest, grain operators warn.

“Some farmers have seed wheat, but a lot of them will have to go somewhere else to get it,” said Dave Shaklee, general manager at Great Plains Co-op in Lahoma. “And, if a farmer gets it shipped in, they might have to spend $12 to $25 more an acre to plant seed.”

He said the co-op received about 30 percent of a normal year’s crop and much of it had test weights that were low, which will affect the money farmers get from wheat sales.

Seed companies too are having problems, with low or no supply of seed wheat to sell.

“We are pretty well sold out of the seed stock we have,” Gene McVey, president at Johnston Seed Co. “We had to leave some seed wheat in the field because we weren’t able to get in and cut it in time.”

To get better quality seed wheat, Johnston had to go 300 to 400 miles away to get it.

“Historically, wheat seed doesn’t have to travel that far,” he said. “So getting it here was $1,000 to $1,500 more.”

Good quality seed wheat is costing more than it has in past years, McVey said.

“It is an issue of supply and demand, and there just hasn’t been enough supply to meet the demand this year,” he said.

He said even out-of-state dealers are having a hard time finding seed wheat.

“Most seed wheat companies have a set amount they usually gather, and so they weren’t prepared to provide extra seed wheat to other parts of the country,” he said. “Many of them have run out of additional seed to sell, so many farmers are going to have to use lower-quality seed wheat.”

Lower test weight wheat may not result in a good crop, he said.

“Farmers might see a five-bushel-an-acre difference between the lighter and heavier test weights’ crop production,” he said.

The shortage will cause some farmers to have to use the lower quality, despite the lowered production, said Ronnie Truelock, general manager at the Farmers Co-op Association in Alva.

“They will have to plant more seeds per acre to make up for the lack of quality, and we don’t know what kind of crops will result from this,” he said.

Some farmers are using seed wheat they cut, said James Wilson, general manager at Waukomis Cooperative Supply.

“If they cut if before the rains, they have a better chance of having some good seed,” he said.

The impact on small country co-ops could be difficult to handle, he said.

“As the months go by, we are going to see a lot of problems arise,” he said. “Our co-op saw a fifth of a normal year’s crop, which really hurts us in what we are able to sell.”

Last year, the drought caused a shortage in how much wheat was available to sell, but what the co-ops did receive was exceptional in quality, Truelock said.

“Most of us have never seen what kind of effects having wheat that wet is going to have on what kind of crop the seed produces,” he said. “How that will perform is anyone’s guess at this time.”

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