The 2017 Hard Spring Wheat and Durum Tour ended with a total weighted average yield of 38.4 bushels per acre, down from 45.5 bpa last year.
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ROCKVILLE, Md. (DTN) – The 2017 Hard Spring Wheat and Durum Tour ended with a total weighted average yield of 38.4 bushels per acre, down from 45.5 bpa last year.
That marks the tour’s lowest total wheat yield since 2008, a sign of the intense drought conditions plaguing much of the western Dakotas this year.
Hard red spring wheat fields alone averaged 38.1 bpa, compared to 45.7 bpa in 2016. Durum fields averaged 39.7 bpa, compared to 45.4 bpa last year.
On Thursday’s third and shortest leg of the tour, hosted by the Wheat Quality Council, crop scouts explored northeastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota before ending the day in Fargo. They visited 64 fields for a Day 3 total wheat average of 46.6 bpa, a little below the 48.9 bpa average from 76 fields in 2016.
Over the course of the three-day tour, crop scouts sampled 496 fields, of which 443 were spring wheat, 47 were durum and six were winter wheat.
The tour grappled with how to handle the high number of abandoned fields in the western counties, many of which had been cut and baled for hay. Those acres aren’t factored into the final yield estimates, but they will clearly play a role in final production numbers, scouts told DTN.
“Obviously, abandonment is much higher than in previous years, so that will bring production down from USDA’s current estimate,” said Erica Olson, a crop scout and marketing specialist with the North Dakota Wheat Commission. (USDA’s July 12 Crop Production Report pegged spring wheat production at 423 million bushels, down 21% from 2016, and durum production at 57.5 mb, a 45% reduction from last year).