LANSING, Mich. – With this season’s wheat harvest nearing completion, it has become apparent there are problems this year with pre-harvest sprouting, a condition that can cause white and sometimes red winter wheat to be unsuitable for milling and thus reduce their value.

Heavy rains in the second half of June poured down in many areas of Michigan nearly every day, according to an announcement from Michigan Agriculture Advancement, a farmers group. The excess moisture creates a situation that favors development of pre-harvest sprouting in small grains. This reduces quality for milling and may necessitate selling the grain for feed. Although it will vary from area to area and even depend on the situation at a given grain elevator, some have speculated that the discount for such wheat could be as high as $2.50 a bushel.

“Certainly it’s a big problem this year with the white wheat crop,” said Tim Boring of Michigan Ag Advancement. “A number of millers are turning away loads of wheat due to poor quality. If a grower is storing his wheat on the farm, he might not even know about the problem right away. There are significant discounts for wheat that is used for feed as opposed to milling. It’s going to be a concern for growers who store their wheat on the farm, as pre-harvest sprouting is not visible to the naked eye.”

For white wheat, a test commonly known as “falling number” is used to check the quality of the grain. The grain elevator usually performs this test. The grower can ask the grain elevator to do a falling number on his grain before he delivers it to the facility to get an idea of what is happening as quickly as possible, said Michigan State University wheat specialist Dennis Pennington. He encourages growers to do exactly that.

Pennington estimates that one quarter of the white wheat crop this year has poor falling number, while 20 percent of red wheat has sprouting issues. The falling number test is not done on red wheat; rather, red wheat is given a visual sprout rating by the grain elevator. “There is more pre-harvest sprouting this year than we’ve probably ever had,” Pennington added. “When you have as much rainfall as we’ve had this year, sprouting even affects red wheat.” In both Ohio and Indiana, wheat growers produce red wheat only. Most of the white wheat grown in the region takes place in the Thumb area of Michigan.

According to both Boring and Pennington, growers affected by pre-harvest sprouting issues can get compensation through their insurance plan, though growers need to be aware of the procedures involved to file a proper claim. The insurance adjuster will need to know if the wheat is sold, stored on the farm, or on delayed price at an elevator facility. For almost all grain quality issues, the elevator grade and dockage can be used to make an insurance settlement.

As if pre-harvest sprouting issues were not enough, the weather added insult to injury in many areas this year, with drought conditions prevailing in many areas early, affecting yield, Pennington said.