ALTON, Ill. — Wheat growers in Illinois, after facing a wet spring that had many believing it would impact overall yields this year, surprised the industry with a second consecutive record season.

 

It wasn’t by much, but growers statewide averaged a smidgeon above 75 bushels per acre, making it another yield record and only the second time they broke the elusive 70 bushels per-acre mark.

Given the wet spring conditions, and results from the Illinois Wheat Assoc.’s own annual tour in late May, growers came away expecting a somewhat off year. But Mother Nature cooperated the rest of the way, and growers did more than enough to treat crops in time before it turned wet.

“After the heavy rains came in early May, I thought we trimmed quite a bit of yield off,” said John Ernst, the association’s president and a grower in southwestern Illinois. He said his own fields didn’t produce the volume they did last year, but they were decent. “I know some areas had really good yields. Overall, it was a pretty good wheat year.”

Although final USDA numbers won’t be released until mid-September, the agency’s National Agricultural Statistics Service is estimating that Land of Lincoln growers produced approximately 36.8 million bushels of winter wheat this season, up by about 6 percent over last year’s production.

Growers planted about 520,000 acres and harvested just shy of 480,000 acres, up 4 percent over last year’s total.

Overall, while growers are producing more per acre, harvested acres still are way below the record numbers posted in 2008. That year, growers planted and harvested more than twice the amount of wheat than each of the past two years; in 2008, about 1.2 million acres with 73.6 million bushels of winter wheat were harvested.

Despite the impression in late May of a weakened yield, after harvest was completed earlier this month the quality of wheat was noticeably better than prior years, said Siemer Milling’s Dave DeVore.

“The quality has been excellent. I’m a little surprised by that,” he said. “Test weights have been 59 to 62 pounds, with some even higher.”

Illinois stands in stark contrast to other parts of country, particularly in Kansas, which saw nearly half of its crop destroyed because of a severe cold snap in late April and early May.

USDA estimates have the national winter wheat crop down about 23 percent from last year, with a projected 1.28 billion bushels harvested. Durum and other spring wheat also have been hit hard by drought out West, according to the USDA estimates, with durum production down about 45 percent.