Ont. winter wheat poised for excellent yields

(Resource News International) — Ideal weather conditions through the fall planting season and winter thus far are reason to believe that this year’s Ontario winter wheat crop has excellent yield potential, according to an industry specialist.

Peter Johnson, provincial cereal specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), said weather conditions have bordered on excellent, meaning that so far the winter wheat crop is in very good condition. Johnson said the crop went in ahead of schedule and was followed by a warm fall.

He cautioned, however, that things may still change in the coming months.

“We’re not out of the woods yet. We tend to have the most injury and crop problems from what we call winter kill. It’s actually not winter kill but early spring kill because it occurs in the March to April time frame. That is when things happen that are less than conducive to good wheat crops.”

With a record number of acres seeded to Ontario winter wheat this past fall, many Ontario producers will have reason to smile if the favorable conditions continue. Johnson said 1.35 million acres were seeded with winter wheat, a sharp increase from the 2006-07 level of roughly 550,000 acres.

Both soybean and corn acreage will be lower as a result of the higher winter wheat acreage, Johnson said. He pointed out, however, that corn acreage last year was higher than normal.

“Last year we saw corn acres increase significantly and a lot of that was due to low winter wheat acreage. Corn bounced up to roughly 2.1 million acres from around 1.6 million. A lot of that is coming back into wheat and we anticipate corn acreage likely bouncing down to around 1.8 million acres.”

Additional acreage could come at the expense of oats and barley, which are often planted when winter wheat cannot be planted in the fall, Johnson explained.

“This year, with the market the way it is, we’re anticipating a drop in barley and oat acreage. Soybeans could lose a little bit as well although it won’t be a huge drop,” he said.

Winter wheat is generally considered a lower input crop relative to corn, he said. It is comparable to soybeans in terms of input costs because both require the use of herbicides rather than nitrogen fertilizer.

Of the winter wheat produced in Ontario, Johnson said one million tonnes are normally used within the Great Lakes Basin area.