More Winter Wheat Grazeout
Seen As Grain Prices Sink

WICHITA, Kan. —(AP)— With prices faltering, more Kansas farmers are letting their livestock graze out winter wheat fields rather than harvest what might have been an otherwise bountiful crop.

Among them is Ingalls farmer Joe Jury, who raises wheat, milo and cattle in a diversified farm operation between Dodge City and Garden City. This spring he didn't bother to take his cattle off the 160 acres of dryland winter wheat he is growing.

``With wheat under $3 a bushel, it is not a hard decision to make,'' Jury said.

But on his irrigated wheat acres, where he can get higher yields to compensate for the lower prices, Jury took his cattle off in time to bring off a good crop.

He always grazes his winter wheat over the fall and winter months, taking the cattle off in time — typically by early March in Kansas — to harvest a good crop. The last time he decided to abandon the wheat harvest was about four years ago, when prices also were low.

On Friday, he sat at his computer terminal on his farm to check the latest wheat prices at the local Garden City co-op. It was just $2.22 a bushel.

The way he figures it, his calves can gain a pound and a half a day grazing the wheat an additional 60 days. That works out to another 100 pounds he can put on his calves by grazing them on the cropland through April and May, increasing his gross income per head by at least one third.

The best Jury could have hoped to get from his dryland wheat was 40 bushels an acre. Wheat prices would have to be in the $3 to $4 per bushel range for him to make a comparable income from those acres as he could make by grazing them instead.

His irrigated acres, where he can get yields of 70 bushels per acre, are a different story. There, he can push production harder by putting more water and fertilizer on them. So the cattle came off.

A lot of his farming neighbors are coming to the same conclusions.

``We see more cattle still out this time of year,'' he said. ``Normally by this time, everyone has pulled them off — either sold the cattle or put them in feedlots and are making plans to harvest their wheat. The number of them grazing their wheat is more than average for this area.''

Kansas farmers last fall seeded 10 million acres of winter wheat, down seven percent from the previous year. But with more farmers opting to graze rather than harvest the crop as prices continue to flounder, it will be harder than usual to estimate the state's wheat production.

``Bids for new-crop wheat have been ranging around $2.50 a bushel. And, winter wheat cash prices nearly always hit their seasonal lows during July-August. So, some farmers already may be grazing out an unusually high percentage of their fields,'' Kansas State University economist Bill Tierney said in a news release.

Conditions so far suggest hard red winter wheat yields could average 41 bushels an acre, just two bushels below last year's record-high yields.

Had it not been for the late grazing, Kansas farmers could have produced a crop near 1.05 billion bushels with those kinds of yields, Tierney said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will release its first estimate of 1999 winter wheat production on May 12. That same day, USDA's World Board of economists will release their projections for the upcoming year's U.S. and world wheat supply and demand estimate.

``They're important indicators. Still, USDA's May report has underestimated the size of the final U.S. winter wheat harvest about 75 percent of the time over the past 49 years,'' Tierney said.

KSU Extension agent Jim Shroyer estimated that Kansas would still end up harvesting 9.5 million acres of wheat.

``The mentality is with the prices of wheat, you can get more out of it by grazing than taking it all the way to grain,'' he said.

That is an option which is mostly open to farmers in the southern part of the state, where farming operations are more diversified and include cattle, he said.

At the Kansas Wheat Commission, assistant administrator Gary Gilbert said he has seen more farms in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma grazing out their wheat to the finish this spring than he has seen in Kansas.

``In Kansas, the grazing is somewhat limited,'' Gilbert said. ``Varieties are not planted with the intention of grazing it. It is more popular in better climates like Oklahoma and Texas.''

Most industry watchers expect this year's winter wheat crop to be smaller than last year, Tierney said. World wheat production is also expected to be five million to 15 million metric tons below last year.

``Combined with present uncertainty about the size of the Canadian and U.S. spring wheat crops, this could provide some longer term price support,'' he said.

In addition to above-average winter wheat conditions, two other factors that will come into play are the generally bearish outlook for feed grains and soybeans and the current slow pace of newcrop U.S. wheat exports, he said.