Timing is everything

Next to his dog and his pickup truck, rain may be a farmer's best friend - unless it comes at the wrong time.

Uniontown farmer Frank Wolf was stalled in harvest earlier this month, waiting for the rain to quit. He'd had a hard time getting started, having cut for just two days before the storms hit.

"Just watching it rain," Wolf said when asked what he does on those days when he can't cut his wheat. "And waiting for better, sunny days."

Wolf said it appears he will reap an average yield this year, but there's always the chance the excess moisture in the midst of harvest could cause the wheat to sprout, damaging the quality of the grain.

"We think so far we are going to be OK," Wolf said. "We've had drying weather between each storm. But it needs to be graded" before he'll know for sure.

Harvest around the region began in early July and in the lower elevations is nearly complete. Farmers in higher elevations were three to four weeks behind the lower areas and many are about a third to halfway finished.

A long, cool spring delayed planting for spring crops in some places and those plants, which germinated later than usual, haven't had as many days to ripen as crops planted earlier.

Russ Braun, the grain merchandise manager for Primeland Cooperative in Lewiston, said the heavy rain late in the summer will likely damage the quality of the crop.

"In general, sprout damage is not a good thing," Braun said. "It starts the germination process and some of the starches built up in the kernel begin to convert to sugar to nurture the young seedling. That reduces the quality of the gluten strength of the flour."

Braun said the lack of timely rain in early summer and too much heat at the wrong time has caused yields to be disappointing in fields at the 1,800 foot elevation and lower. It's still too early to make a call on crops raised on higher ground.

Wheat prices, as well, he said, are below last year's level, hovering at $5 a bushel and lower at Portland.

Larry Smith, Nez Perce County's University of Idaho extension agent, said he's talked to growers at all elevations who expect to have only average yields this year.

"They said across all their acres it looked like they were going to have an average yield. But considering what it could have been they were just smiling and happy to have average," Smith said.

"Average is a lot better than below."

Smith said some varieties of soft white wheat are especially vulnerable to excess rain.

"Some of these varieties, all they have to do is just look at a raindrop and they want to sprout. It's part of their genetic makeup that they're more prone."

Although crops that have been sown in fields that held a crop the year before are more likely to suffer when the weather is bad, Smith said this year it looks like even the wheat planted in summer fallow ground is having a tough time. Summer fallow fields usually hold more moisture and produce bigger yields than re-cropped fields.

"When some of our better farmers are having average to below average (yields) on summer fallow," Smith said, "that's a red flag that the ground that has been re-cropped are going to be below average in many fields.

"The moisture definitely played a factor in the lower elevations."

So what do farmers do, knowing that there's no way they can control the weather and their vulnerability year to year?

"I think growers, most of them, plant for the worst and hope for the best," Smith said.

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Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@camasnet.com or (208) 983-2326.