Holly Hybrids is dedicated to keeping our customers on the cutting edge of sugarbeet news!

Sugar News

Farmers expect to focus on spring pulse crops

By: Jo Dee Black, Great Falls Guardian

4-1-2010

Montana farmers expect to plant less wheat and barley this spring, instead opting for more pulse crops, including peas and lentils.

Producers say they plan to plant 2.8 million acres of spring wheat this year, up 17 percent from last year, according to the 2010 Prospective Plantings report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service's Montana field office. Farmers planted 2.05 million acres of winter wheat last fall, down 20 percent from the previous year.
If farmers stay that course, 5.35 million acres will be planted with wheat in Montana, down 3 percent from 2009, when 5.52 million acres were planted with wheat.
The numbers aren't a surprise, said John Hilton of the Montana NASS office.

"A couple of years back, when grain prices were so high, a lot of producers took fallow ground and planted it," Hilton said. "What we are seeing now might just be a correction of what farmers were doing before. Now they are doing more normal rotations."
The NASS report is based on what farmers say their planting plans are, Hilton said.
"When we do our next surveys in June, we'll have a much better idea about what this year's planted acreage looks like," he said.

Dry conditions last fall contributed to the drop in seeding of winter wheat acres, said Lola Raska, executive vice president of the Montana Grain Growers Association.
"We expected spring wheat plantings to be up in the Golden Triangle because of that, and there is also a real push to increase some of the pulse crop acres," she said. "There's a lot of interest for a variety of reasons. Columbia Grain has opened up several delivery points, people are using pulse crops as a rotation for sawfly control and the farm programs have some incentives to encourage pulse crops in rotations."

Montana farmers expect to plant 240,000 acres with dry peas, the same as last year, and 195,000 acres with lentils, up 23 percent from 2009.

Lower wheat prices also are influencing planting decisions, said Myles Watts, a professor of agricultural economics at Montana State University-Bozeman.

We are back down to where we were six or seven years ago, when prices were about what they are today, so this is pretty consistent," he said.

Sugar beet acres are expected to be at 42,000 this year in Montana — 4,000 more acres than last year — according to farmers.

"That's good because sugar beets are a high-value crop for the state," Watts said.

Montana barley farmers intend to plant 790,000 acres, down 9 percent from 2009.

"There is a lot of barley being held on to by grain elevators and producers," Hilton said. "Barley is grown under contract, so we expected to see it moving more than it is."
However, malt made from barley is a main ingredient in beer, and beer consumption is down, Raska said.
"That's really affecting barely production," she said. "These are some of the lowest acres we've seen planted since the 1950s."

The intended seeded acreage for oats in Montana is expected to be 60,000 acres, down 10,000 acres from 2009. Montana corn growers intend to plant 80,000 acres, up 8,000 acres from last year.

Montana canola producers intend to plant 18,000 acres in 2010, according to the report, up from 6,500 acres in 2009. Flaxseed producers intend to plant 13,000 acres in 2010, up 2,000 acres from last year.

Nationwide, the amount of acres planted with wheat is estimated at 53.8 million, down 9 percent from 2009. The 2010 winter wheat planted area, at 37.7 million acres, is 13 percent below last year but up 2 percent from the previous estimate.

The area planted to other spring wheat for 2010 is estimated at 13.9 million acres, up 5 percent from 2009.