Harvest looks good out west

Good signs are coming into grain elevators in western Whitman County, as farmers and grain brokers both report a good quality, high yielding crop in harvest’s early stages.

“Things look real good from here right now,” Steve Camp of Dusty told the Gazette from his combine Tuesday afternoon.

Jimmy Johnson, foreman of Columbia Grain’s Central Ferry plant, said he’s taking in good-looking, high yielding wheat from this year’s harvest crews.

“We’re getting some real good quality here,too,” said Johnson. “I think most of it will make number one (grade).”

Most of the new crop has been above average he said, with samples ranging from 60 bushels per acre up to 85 bushels per acre from fields near Dusty.

Ashley Goolsby at Ritzville Warehouse’s elevator in LaCrosse, said her moisture tester is recording yields from 58 bushels per acre to well over 60 bushels per acre, high averages for the dry part of the county.

While the extended cool temperatures and wet conditions pushed harvest back later than usual, it gave crops a great boost heading into harvest, said David Knopf with the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Office in Olympia.

Winter wheat harvest is expected to be 1.7 million acres, down 60,000 acres from 2011. Spring wheat harvest is expected to be 480,000 acres, down 140,000 acres from last year.

Camp said he had worries about stripe rust with the cool, wet weather, but fungicide applications staved off much damage.