From Kansas Agland:
Farmers here in the central and southern Plains are beginning to wonder why the Russian drought is getting all the attention.
There's only one thing that wheat farmers out here are talking about-and that is, how dry it is.
In any conversation with High Plains wheat farmers, the talk instantly turns to whether they can get their wheat up. Of course, there's a range in desperation. But the standard answer is, "if I planted today, I could probably get up a couple of fields. But beyond that, it's awfully marginal. I just don't think it would work."
With wheat prices over $6/bushel, we want to plant wheat. But if it ever rains again, it will be kind of interesting to see how many acres we actually plant. Because of good subsoil moisture and great experiences with summer row crops last year, a lot of land was not fallowed and instead went into dryland milo or corn this spring.
But it's still dry. In June, July and August, we had only 50 percent of normal precip. In addition, the trend is not our friend....MORE
HT: Dr. Hazlett at the Climate+Energy Project blog who tipped us to the Russian drought on July 2, two weeks before the general media started following the story.
On July 15 I wrote:
Here are a couple stories about what's going on in Russia. Wheat harvest estimates have been sliced from 82 million tonnes a month ago to 75 million today with further estimate reductions ahead. We were first directed to the problem by Dr. Hazlett at the Climate+Energy Project, thanks Maril....I really mean it.
