Wheat Harvest

Wheat harvest has started in SW Ohio. We raise Soft Red Winter Wheat that is used for baking sweets. Oreo cookies is one of the main users of Ohio wheat.

I can be fed to livestock too. We used to feed up to a pound per pound of corn when we were short of feed or wheat was cheap. Wheat never got over $2 per bushel for years and years so it became a sister crop or a forgotten crop.

When I was a child, I remember trucks and tractor and wagons lined down the road from Sardinia past our farm. Wheat was an important cash crop then because it was easy to grow, grew in the off months and everyone needed the straw for livestock bedding.

That has all changed. I am not sure what grandpa produced but I am sure it was at least 25 bushels per acre. When I was a child, 50 bushels was a good crop. Now if you can't raise 80 bushels wheat really isn't worth raising compared to corn or soybeans.

I raised the most I ever raised in my life last year because the fall of 2007 was so dry and I wanted a quick crop and ground cover. I got it. The price was excellent, the lowest I got all year was $6 per bushel. Better yet, we built organic matter and had a good cover crop of soybeans to sell afterwards.

Grandpa always said dust your wheat or plant in dry conditions and in my lifetime he has been right. The best yields I ever got was planted in dry falls like last year. Mudding cereal grains in just doesn't work for me.

This has been another interesting year so far.

You wonder what is next.

Ed