January 3, 2007

 

Weekend snowstorm helps US winter wheat growing conditions

 

 

Heavy, wet snow that blanketed parts of Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska during the weekend improved soil moisture and is considered mostly beneficial for winter wheat, crop specialists said.

 

Some Plains wheat-growing areas were buried under as much as three feet of snow after they already received rain the previous weekend, the specialists told Dow Jones Newswires.

 

"It's all good news for the wheat crop," said Aaron Harries, director of marketing for the Kansas Wheat Commission. "Obviously, there was a little bit of ice, which caused some everyday hassles for producers as far as power outages. But it was just good moisture for the wheat crop."

 

Crops in the western third of Kansas received the equivalent of two to four inches of water from rain, ice and snowfall, Harries said. The north-west quarter of the state saw the most snow, and there is still some on the ground, he added.

 

Snow cover is beneficial for growing wheat because it protects the crop from injury and temperature shifts, said Bob Klein, cropping systems specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension.

 

Klein, who is based in west-central Nebraska, said the region saw eight to 10 inches of snow during the New Year's holiday weekend after getting almost two inches of rain the previous weekend.

 

"This is ideal to have a blanket of snow out there and some moisture with it," Klein said.

 

There are slight concerns that wheat in low-lying areas may have been "drowned out" by the recent precipitation, Klein noted. Overall, however, the moisture was favourable, he said.

 

"The majority of our areas, they need some precipitation," Klein said. "The wheat was getting dry."

 

The DTN Meteorlogix weather firm reported soil moisture for winter wheat was "much improved" after rain and snow during the last two weekends. The moisture intake was enhanced by a lack of frost in the soil, the firm added.

 

"Infiltration of moisture into the ground will be high and will be very beneficial to winter wheat and pastures in the southern Plains," Meteorlogix said.

 

In south-eastern Colorado, about three feet of snow fell and provided three to four inches of moisture for the soil, said Leonard Pruett, area director of the Colorado State University (CSU) Cooperative Extension.

 

The snow was so wet and heavy, however, that it could create some problems, Pruett noted.

 

"There's so much of it that it's just smashed everything totally flat," Pruett said about the snow. "At this time of year, it's just not going to melt. It could thin the stand out. It could reduce the potential yield."

 

North-eastern Colorado, meanwhile, only saw about an inch to an inch and a half of snow, said Bruce Bosley, a CSU Extension agent in that area. The new snow added to coverage still on the ground from a snowstorm that hit about a week earlier and shut down the Denver airport, he noted.