Virginia winter wheat production soars after ‘near-perfect’ growing season | New

HEATHSVILLE—With help from Mother Nature, Virginia farmers produced one of the best winter wheat crops in years, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

A NASS report released Sept. 30 found Virginia farmers harvested 10.2 million bushels of winter wheat in 2022, a 27% increase from 2021. This year’s wheat harvest represents Virginia’s largest since 2018, when Commonwealth farmers harvested 13.8 million bushels.

Virginia farmers harvested 150,000 acres of grain in 2022, marking the third straight year of improved production after a record harvest of 105,000 acres in 2019. The average yield per acre also rose to 68 bushels this year, a high of nine years and 5 bushels per acre over the previous five-year average.

“Environmentally, I think we had a near-perfect season,” Trent Jones, a Virginia Cooperative Extension agent in Northumberland and Lancaster counties, said of wheat production in Northern Neck.

Jones noted that some Northern Neck growers had to contend with a wet fall that delayed planting, but many of their fields had dried out to appropriate spring conditions. Timely rains and proactive crop management, Jones added, helped keep disease to a minimum and enabled farmers to produce quality wheat.

“I would credit (the yields) to the farmers in Northern Neck – and all of Virginia – who stayed on top of their crops and gave the plants what they needed when they needed it to produce the best possible yields in the conditions that were presented,” he said. “This year, it seemed like it all came together…and it resulted in a very, very acceptable crop.”

Northumberland County grain producer Mike Bryant noted he had a decent wheat crop with bushels per acre recorded in the 70s. supply chain and market volatility due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, Bryant said he needed to be diligent in transforming a profitable culture.

“We may have gotten off to a late start, but other than that everything seemed like a pretty normal year,” he said.

Robert Harper, director of the grain division of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, noted that the increase in production was partly influenced by favorable wheat futures prices from August to October.

“There was a financial incentive for farmers in Virginia as they looked to the future, and if they were able to generate an above-average yield or even an average yield, they saw an opportunity to take advantage of that price. eventually,” Harper explained.

“Our seed companies were ready – they had the product available to farmers when they called to buy because they were seeing good prices, and then the weather last fall cooperated,” he added. “Positive price prospects, availability of inputs at planting time and optimal planting conditions have all proven to be crucial for the success of the harvests. “The quality of the Virginia wheat crop this year has been excellent.