PNW Eyeing HRS

Spring wheat, traditionally grown in the Northern Plains, may hold niche market opportunities for growers on the West Coast

By David Boehm

Hard red spring (HRS) wheat has long been a mainstay in the Northern Plains of the U.S. Indeed, nearly all of the HRS grown in this country is produced in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Minnesota, with quality known worldwide.

Now, some in the Pacific Northwest are looking at growing HRS as a niche crop. As growers throughout the U.S. become more adept at targeting high-quality markets for end-use traits, one aim is high-protein spring wheat for domestic and export markets.

“The average protein and consistent quality for HRS in the Northern Plains is the target for the rest of the (wheat) industry,” says John Moffatt, a wheat breeder for AgriPro Wheat, a private wheat breeding company. Says Moffatt, based in the state of Washington: “Farmers here are no different than anywhere else in the U.S., they’re trying to make a buck.”

One such farmer is Dan McKay of Almira, Wash., who reveals that he has tried growing just about every class of wheat available. He says prices in Portland can be $1.00 higher for HRS compared to soft white wheat.

In the past, McKay says growing wheat with protein above 13% has been possible only in dry years.  Now, however, higher protein can be achieved with the help of a good agronomist and targeted production techniques, as well as new HRS varieties adapted for production in the PNW, such as “Tara” from Washington State University, which has good protein and yield.

Spring wheat production in the PNW remains small.  According to the Washington State Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 1.32 million harvested acres of spring wheat in the PNW in 2002. To compare, U.S. harvested acres of spring wheat in 2002 totaled 15.17 million acres. About 640,000 acres were located in Washington State, of which only 167,000 acres were HRS.  Soft white spring wheat accounted for 456,000 acres, with the remaining 16,000 acres hard white spring wheat.

Kim Kidwell is a WSU wheat breeder who is developing HRS adapted to the PNW. Kidwell says past spring wheat varieties adapted for production in the PNW had weak gluten protein quality, but she feels new varieties have “upped the benchmark for baking quality.” Kidwell says she has combined better protein content and protein quality in her program while maintaining yield potential. She points out too that no-till production is increasing in the PNW, which is better suited for spring wheats over winter wheats.

Kidwell says new spring wheat breeding efforts might focus on hard white wheats instead of HRS. WSU has recently released a hard white spring variety, “Macon” that has good baking and noodle quality. 

Leland Barth, marketing specialist for the North Dakota Wheat Commission, says that dual-purpose wheat like Macon may interest Asian customers. “Generally, spring wheat is too high in protein for noodle markets, but Washington may have lower protein, and may be fit for such dual-purpose wheat where rainfall and yields are higher.”  Even then, he doesn’t believe there will be any significant shifts in the PNW toward producing spring wheat.

Indeed, producing consistently high protein HRS is still a challenge in a growing environment that favors yield. “Producers have a difficult time getting 14% protein in (the PNW) environment,” says John Burns, WSU extension agronomist. Burns says another downside is that it can be more expensive to grow HRS, pointing out that farmers may end up paying for protein by adding more fertilizer to their production.

Hard red spring wheats also have a yield disadvantage in the PNW.  Burns says that dryland soft white spring wheats average 70-75 bu/ac, while HRS produces only 50 bu/ac.  “I don’t care what kind of protein premiums you have, you can’t beat yield,” says Burns.

Still, there is niche potential for the production of spring wheat in the PNW. Bradford Brown, University of Idaho extension agronomist, says that approximately 80% of wheat produced in the PNW is exported.  Spring wheats may help to recover some of the U.S. wheat export markets lost to Australian farmers.  The transportation cost would also be less compared to HRS produced in the Northern Plains.

Kidwell says spring wheat produced in the PNW may hold promise in some West Coast domestic markets. Smaller, specialized HRS production in the PNW may lend itself to an “ingredient” market in the U.S., versus the larger export commodity market of winter wheats.  There would need to be a price incentive, however, as segregating specialized spring wheat with other wheat produced in the PNW may result in additional costs. 

Burns agrees that producers would need financial incentive to earmark some of their acres to spring wheat.  But developing markets is a difficult business, particularly in an industry that covets consistent quality. Says Moffatt: “DNS (Dark Northern Spring, the highest quality subclass of HRS grown in the Northern Plains) has established markets and a reputation.”

-----------------

Wheat Farming in the Palouse

The Palouse (pronounced “pa-loose”) is an agricultural region that extends from southeastern Washington to north central Oregon.  When the land was settled in the late 1800s, steep, rolling hills led some to be skeptical of the area’s ability to grow crops. “Only a damn fool would think of farming the hills, and it would result in the destruction of good cattle range to try what would result in poor farms,” noted one Palouse pioneer. 

Nevertheless, farmers began farming the Palouse to supply their own families and livestock with grain. When the initial crops were harvested, the bounty of bushels from the silt, loan topsoil encouraged farmers to begin planting more grain, and the Palouse has been a major wheat production area of the U.S. ever since.

Average rainfall ranges from 16 to 21 inches a year, and Palouse farmers produce some of the best dryland crop yields in the world: 70 to more than 100 bushels of wheat per acre. Farmers here also benefit from a short distance to export markets, and hence, lower freight costs.

Farming here is not without its challenges, however. The steep hills pose soil and water erosion problems for producers to manage. Growers need tractors and self-leveling hillside combines of 350 horsepower or more to plant and harvest crops at elevations that range from 1,900 feet above sea level to 2,400 feet at Pullman, home of Washington State University, a leader in wheat production research in the Pacific Northwest.

(Sources: Washington State University; Deanna Noland, Eastern Washington University.)