Illinois Wheat Yields Disappoint

Too much rain at the wrong times seems to be the story for Illinois wheat this year, with farms in many of the state's counties reporting lower than anticipated yields and quality.

“It’s been a tough spring,” said one elevator manager. “I don’t remember a year in recent memory that’s been this bad.”

Test weights were especially low on grain brought into Mt. Vernon. Millers prefer wheat at close to 60 pounds per bushel, but much of it here was nowhere near that figure, according to him.

“There was quite a lot of it at 51-52 pounds,” he said. “Most of it was around 53 to 54 pounds. There were a couple loads at 58, but there weren’t too many that didn’t get docked.”

Elsewhere yields were a bit better than expected, but quality was still a problem, with more than half the wheat unlikely to meet miller's exacting standards.

“We got too much rain at the wrong times. Scab was a problem. Coming in at flowering time, we had a lot of rain.”

“A small number of producers who used fungicides had decent test weights,” he said. “A couple who came in here had 70 to 80 bushels. But 50 to 60 was more common. Fungicides definitely helped, but it didn’t make it perfect.”