Pummeled by hail or beaten down by markets, Nebraska wheat growers face challenges this year.
Those amber waves of grain used to cover hundreds of acres on Joe Mazour's farm. Harvest would take days but this year it was done in an afternoon.
“Couple hours, we had about 30, 35 acres,” he said.
Joe says winter wheat is getting harder to find in south central Nebraska.
“There's just not as much wheat as there used to be,” he said. As farmers have adopted irrigation, Mazour says corn and soybeans make more sense and then there are the markets.
“Price-wise it's not as good, it's just down to bottom line economics what it is,” he said.
“Been a down trending market for the last year,” said Tyler Schau of AgMarket.net.
Those who follow the markets say the crop in the northern plains was rough a few years back then Russia invaded Ukraine.
“That just shot wheat prices up to crazy high levels and really since the markets realized it didn't really disrupt world trade as much as expected, last summer we've been in a downtrend in this wheat market,” Schau said.
Nebraska farmers planted more wheat this year. Some was hailed out, others have suffered from drought and may bale wheat as cattle feed.
Mazour said, “This year we haven't even had an alfalfa crop it was so dry, everybody's trying to get every inch you can, price of hay you do what you have to do to make cows survive.”
Source: foxnebraska.com
Photo Credit: gettyimages-prostock-studio
Categories: Nebraska, Crops, Wheat