Bad weather batters Oklahoma wheat crop

After being plagued by a barrage of droughts, freezes and heavy rains, Oklahoma's wheat crop for 2009 is far from satisfactory.

Farmers in northern Oklahoma wrapped up harvests this week and some farmers in the Panhandle are still harvesting, but few are happy with the yields.

Mike Schulte, the executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, said they will probably get less than half the wheat this year than last year.

The USDA estimated the 2009 Oklahoma wheat harvest to be about 73.5 million bushels, down from last year's yield of 166.5 million bushels, even though farmers planted 300,000 more acres of wheat this year.

Prices have declined too.

US No.1 hard red winter wheat sold in a range of US$4.64 to US$5.21 on Wednesday, down from last year's range of US$7.64 to US$8.18.

A heavy freeze in early April destroyed most of the crop in southwestern Oklahoma and badly damaged acreage in the state's midsection. Many parts of Oklahoma also received heavy rains in April and May.

There is some good wheat, but most are bad, said Don Scheiber, a Kay County farmer and contract wheat harvester. Scheiber added he did not take his harvesting business to southwestern Oklahoma this year because nearly all the fields were ruined.

Schulte said wheat prices are likely to stay low for US farmers because of strong crops in Australia, Russia and other parts of the world.