Montana 2009 Winter Wheat Seedings

Released: January 12, 2009 For more information contact: Thomas Chard or John Hilton at 1-800-835-2612.

Montana producers seeded 2.5 million acres of winter wheat last fall for the 2009 crop year, down 100,000 acres or 4 percent below the 2008 winter wheat planting of 2.6 million acres,. Winter wheat conditions in Montana at the end of December were better than a year ago, and were rated 1% very poor, 4% poor, 20% fair, 61% good, and 14% excellent, compared with 2% very poor, 11% poor, 54% fair, 29% good, and 4% excellent a year ago. Protectiveness of snow cover at the end of December was rated 2% very poor, 4% poor, 17% fair, 32% good, and 45% excellent. Wind damage was rated 98 percent none to light compared with 94 percent last year, while freeze and drought damage was 99 percent none to light compared with 91 percent last year. U.S. winter wheat planted area for harvest in 2009 is estimated at 42.1 million acres, down 9 percent from 2008. Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat seeded area is about 30.2 million acres, down 4 percent from 2008. Soft Red Winter (SRW) area, at about 8.29 million acres, is down 26 percent from last year. White Winter wheat seeded area totals nearly 3.62 million acres, up 1 percent from 2008. Acreage is below last year's level in all States in the HRW growing areas except Colorado and Texas, where acreage increased 250,000 and 100,000, respectively. The late row crop harvest and lower prices limited planted acres in most parts with planted area down 600,000 acres in Kansas and down 200,000 in Oklahoma. Abandonment of several thousand acres of cotton in Texas allowed for increased winter wheat acres. Colorado producers had good planting conditions along with normal summer fallow rotation allowing for an increase in planted acres over 2008.

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