Source: US Wheat Associates newsletter

Winter wheat seeded area for 2006 is expected to total 41.4 million acres, up 2 percent from last year, USDA reported last week. Plantings of hard red winter, white winter and desert durum (Arizona and California) are all lower than 2005, but soft red winter wheat plantings are up 19 percent.

Hard red winter was seeded in about 29.9 million acres, down only one percent from last year. But production of HRW may not turn out quite as high as the plantings would generally indicate, due to the continuing drought in Texas and Oklahoma. Those two states, and Kansas, are the only states that increased their HRW plantings. But the Texas Department of Agriculture reported on Friday that the majority of all dry planted small grains in that state have been lost due to the drought, and in many other locations emergence after planting never occurred due to the absence of soil moisture. Statewide, Texas wheat condition was rated at mostly poor to very poor.

The 19 percent increase in soft red winter wheat plantings are largely due to good weather. Autumn 2005 saw ideal conditions in the northern portion of the SRW growing range, in contrast to last year's wet fall weather.

White winter wheat seeded area is down about one percent. Washington acreage stayed the same as last year, but Idaho and Oregon saw some reductions.

Durum acreage in California and Arizona is about 6 percent less than last year. USDA indicates that Arizona acreage is down because of the cost of fertilizer and concerns about low prices, but small grain planting continues throughout the state, with planting half completed. Some California planting is ongoing, but generally winter wheat fields continued to grow well with recent rain and warm temperatures.

The full USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service "Winter Wheat Seedings" report, with state-by-state totals, is available at http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/reports/nassr/field/pcp-bbw/wtry0106.txt