Heavy rains affect wheat crop

Farmers driving colorful combines as they toil to harvest amber waves of grain is a common sight in the Midwest, where much of the nation's wheat is grown.

This spring, it's also a common sight in northwest Alabama, where the winter wheat harvest is in full swing.

"This is a busy time of year for us. We're running wide open harvesting and cleaning grain," said Greg Hamner, president of Clemmons and Hamner Seed in the Greenhill community of Lauderdale County. "We're busy cutting wheat right now."

Charles Burmester, an agronomist for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, said farmers throughout the Tennessee Valley are harvesting wheat. The harvesting comes to a halt when rain returns to the valley.

Slowing the harvest is not the only problem the rain has caused for wheat farmers.

"We had some insect problems and some disease problems caused by all the rain we had in May that hurt our wheat crop," Burmester said. "A dry May is best for wheat. A wet May can really hurt your yield."

Hamner had hoped to harvest around 100 bushels of wheat an acre from his company's fields this spring.

"We'll be lucky if we can average 70 bushels of wheat an acre across the board," he said. "Wheat does not like wet feet, and our wheat had wet feet all this spring. We have some fields that will produce less than 50 bushels per acre."

A bushel of wheat weighs 60 pounds.

Other farmers are reporting wheat yields ranging from 25 to 85 bushels per acre.

Unlike corn, cotton and soybeans that are planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in late spring.

Burmester said many north Alabama farmers are growing wheat this year instead of cotton and corn because it offers more potential for profit.

Wheat is fetching about $6 per bushel, up from about $3.50 per bushel in 2006. Corn is selling for about $4.50 per 56-pound bushel this year while cotton is being sold for about 55 cents per pound.

Colbert County farmer Paul Jeffreys said while the price for wheat is down from 2008, he remains optimistic about this year's crop.

"We were afraid we were going to have some diseases from all the May rain, but we haven't found any problems yet. We just started cutting wheat this week, but so far our yield has been pretty good too."

While the rain forecast for today through Tuesday will postpone his wheat harvest, Jeffreys is not not bothered by the delay. "We need the rain. Our corn is at a point that it needs some rain to make a good crop."

Alabama farmers are expected to harvest about 200,000 acres of wheat this year, which is about the same as they harvested in 2008. Approximately 100,000 of those acres are in the Tennessee Valley, Burmester said. In 2007, Alabama farmers harvested 80,000 acres of wheat.

The soft red wheat grown by Alabama farmers is typically used to produce flour for baking cakes, crackers and flat breads.

As wheat production has risen in north Alabama in recent years, cotton acreage has declined.

"Cotton is really scarce this year in the northern counties," Burmester said. "We're only going to have 70,000 to 80,000 acres of cotton in the north Alabama region this year. We used to have 77,000 acres planted each year in Limestone County alone."

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@TimesDaily.com.