By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

MARION, Ohio — Don’t count your wheat until it’s in the bin.
Ohio farmers had their wheat planted in a timely fashion last fall, and the crop came up and got a good start on growth. Producers are expecting good yields, but there are still things such as armyworms and summer storm to keep them on their toes.

Ohio farmers have planted about 1.1 million acres of wheat for this year, an increase from the 800,000 planted last year, said Dwayne Siekman, executive director of the Ohio Wheat Growers Assoc. (OWGA).

“We’ve had issues with armyworms in the northern regions of Ohio, but it is under control,” Siekman said. “The cool temperatures and the rain may have set back harvest a little bit, but not much. Overall, growers are optimistic. They’re expecting average to above-average yields.”

Mark Wachtman, president of the OWGA and a grower from northwestern Ohio, concurred with Siekman’s views, as did wheat board member John Hoffman, a producer in south-central Ohio. Both had good conditions for the fall planting. Hoffman had his crop in by the second week in October.

“Conditions were excellent, as a whole,” Wachtman said. “The crop came up and had tremendous growth last fall.”

Then came all the rain in February and March.

“As good as it was going into dormancy, when it came out, standing water is not good,” Wachtman said.

“It was a wet spring,” Hoffman added. “The first round of nitrogen got put on later than we would have liked.”

After a cool May, a plus for the wheat crop, worms struck in Wachtman’s portion of the state.

“Everything was looking great and then we had armyworm,” he said. “I’m going to say 90 to 95 percent of the wheat in northwest Ohio was sprayed with an insecticide for armyworm.”

Yields may or may not be affected, depending on the timing of that spraying and the severity of the infestation at the time of spraying, Wachtman said.

“We’re probably going to see yields from excellent to poor and run the whole gamut in between,” he said. “If you didn’t get that wheat sprayed in a timely fashion, it will reduce your yields upwards to 30 percent. Army worms will do that in a couple of days.”

In Hoffman’s portion of the state, armyworms were not a problem but as harvest nears, there have been storms. That’s the weather scenario that complicates the wheat harvest, he said.

“When the wheat starts to mature out, you get a two- to four-day wet spell,” Hoffman said.

“That causes a lot of problems in the grain.

“We will start harvesting in the 18 percent level. Perfect moisture on soft red winter wheat is 13.5. In our area producers will harvest in the 15-18 percent area so they can get in their double-crop soybeans.”

Weather is not the only thing affecting wheat yields. Genetically modified wheat has been developed but it is “on the shelf,” Wachtman said. “The industry decided not to use it,” he said. “One of the reasons was that wheat is moved into the food channel so much quicker than the other corn and beans are (the amount of wheat that goes directly to the human consumer is much greater than corn and soybeans). That has stopped all research on genetically modified wheat.”

Whereas corn and soybean yields have increased 3-5 percent in recent years, wheat yields have not kept up. Potentially, that could mean fewer acres planted to wheat.

“We were already at record lows in this nation two years ago,” Wachtman said. “There just is not as much money in it.”

While there is no food shortage, the potential is there if producers don’t increase wheat yields, he said.

The majority of wheat grown in Ohio is soft red winter wheat, which is used for cookies and cakes. Ohio wheat growers are first in the United States in soft red winter wheat production and Ohio is one of the largest flour milling states in the country.