Farmscape for April 11, 2011   (Episode 3555)

A weather an crop analyst with the Canadian Wheat Board reports strong values for milling wheats have tempered interest in growing higher yielding varieties suited for livestock production.

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 crop year the Canadian Grain Commission eliminated KVD or kernel visual distinguishability as a registration criteria for new varieties of wheat and added a new general purpose class clearing the way for plant breeders to move forward in developing new higher yielding lines specifically suited for industrial uses such as ethanol production and for feeding livestock that could not have been registered under the old system.

Canadian Wheat Board weather and crop analyst Stuart McMillan says interest in the general purpose and non-registered varieties has been tempered by higher values for milling wheats.

Clip-Stuart McMillan-Canadian Wheat Board:
With the creation of the new general purpose varieties of wheats we'd been initially anticipating seeing some growth in that variety.

I think, given the way the prices have strongly rallied, many farmers from what we've been hearing have been less enthusiastic towards increasing their acreage of some of these feed specific varieties.

Simply right now we have not seen Canadian feed prices increase nearly as much as we've seen values in corn increase so that spread between U.S. corn and Canadian cereal grains has not maintained itself evenly so, for the most part, with farmers able to lock in very attractive values of milling wheats we've seen some of that interest shift back into milling wheats relative to feed grades.

McMillan notes we've seen a tremendous rally in U.S. corn futures in the past few days which has been supportive for cereal crop values.

He says we're looking at some very attractive cereal prices relative to historic norms and suggests, if you can lock in nine dollars a bushel on red spring wheat, it makes it difficult to justify planting other cereals even if they offer an extra five, six or even ten bushels to the acre.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       * Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council