State

From NASS There were 5.0 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, down from 5.4 the previous week. Crop conditions and emergent progress benefited from a mixture of rain and sunshine throughout the state. Field crops looked good. Rain hampered some final planting and fieldwork. In western Washington, the warmer weather last week helped grass hay grow at a ... Read More »

Due to social distancing guidelines, Washington State University (WSU) Cereal Variety Testing Program has canceled their 2020 plot tours. According to the WSU small grains website, virtual tours will be recorded at Lind, the Wilke Farm/Reardan, Dayton and Pullman. The annual Lind Field Day has also been canceled. This is only the second field day cancellation in 105 years; the ... Read More »

From NASS There were 5.4 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, down some from 5.9 the previous week. Planting progress wrapped up, and good emergent progress was reported. In western Washington, a mix of rain and sunshine helped field crops stay healthy. In San Juan County, forage was almost ready for early haylage harvest. Livestock was on rotation ... Read More »

Today, growers in Eastern Washington learned many of them would not be eligible for the latest round of aid from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Soft red winter, hard red winter and white wheat have been deemed not eligible for the Coronovirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), which sets aside $16 billion for direct payments to farmers and ranchers under ... Read More »

By Dr. Xianming Chen This week, we were eventually able to travel to Mount Vernon (Skagit County) in northwest Washington to finish the first note-taking of stripe rust in winter nurseries and planting spring nurseries. The activities were about two to three weeks later than usual. Winter wheat ranged from late jointing (Feekes 9) to headed (Feekes 10.5) and winter ... Read More »

In a series of articles, U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is profiling state wheat commissions, highlighting the partnership between the commissions and USW. Today, they focused on the Washington Grain Commission (WGC). The WGC has been a member of USW since 1980, and several commissioners have served as chairman of the WGC. Read the full profile here.   Read More »

From the National Agricultural Statistics Service Based on May 1, 2020, conditions, production of winter wheat in Washington was forecast at 118 million bushels, down 1 percent from 2019. Yield was expected to average 72.0 bushels per acre, up 2.0 bushels from the previous year. Growers planted an estimated 1.7 million acres in the fall of 2019, down 50,000 acres from ... Read More »

From NASS There were 5.9 days suitable for fieldwork in Washington last week, up slightly from 5.8 the previous week. There was rainfall early in the week followed by sunshine and warmer temperatures. Good planting progress was reported statewide. In western Washington, rainfall was followed by three days of record-breaking temperatures in the mid 80s, allowing quite a bit of ... Read More »

Last week, WAWG’s AMMO program partnered with NRCS to host a webinar, covering topics of timelines, the new ranking tool, changes to CSP and EQIP, eligibility requirements, payment schedules, and more. A recording of the link can be found HERE. We apologize for the sound quality, it does improve a few minutes in. Presentation materials can be found HERE. We ... Read More »

From Dr. Xianming Chen Today, I was checking stripe rust in our winter wheat experimental fields around Pullman (Whitman County in Washington), and found stripe rust on susceptible check varieties in two of the three locations. This is the first observation of stripe rust of this season in the Palouse region. The same fields were checked on April 22 and ... Read More »