South Carolina Wheat Growers Waiting on Calendar to Plant

South Carolina producers are getting in position to plant hard red winter wheat in the Palmetto State according to George Stabler, agronomist with Pioneer Hi-bred, in South Carolina:

“A lot of the acres that will go into wheat will be behind corn or peanuts. The corn acres are already pretty much worked up, a lot of minimum tillage work went on. A lot of acres behind peanuts they really don’t have to do anything, just drop and plant, no till necessary. There is a lot of talk about wheat this fall with some good export markets and a lot of feed integrators on the I-95 corridor buying a lot of wheat. A lot of wheat will go in this fall and I think most of the wheat in South Carolina will be planted in the November time frame, between the 5th and 25th.”
 

With hard red winter wheat hovering in the $9.00 a bushel range on the futures market, every bare patch of ground is expected to have wheat on it according to Stabler:
 

“I think there will be increased acres in both North and South Carolina. They had a relatively good crop this past year, it wasn’t a bumper crop, but it was a good crop. They were able to get rid of it very easily. The feed markets were buying a lot of wheat and growers are not having to hold onto it. I would say about a 15-20% increase in wheat acres this coming season.”
 

In addition to price, Stabler says another attraction of winter wheat to producers is that buyers are more eager to take it off their hands:
 

“The feed markets have opened up a lot and they are buying the majority of our wheat, where we used to be predominantly on the flour side, peddling it out over the next 8-10 months after they cut it. They had to hold it for a long time and maintain quality.”

George Stabler, field agronomist with Pioneer Hi-bred on Today’s Topic.