Flathead Producers Report High Winter Wheat Yields Amid Low Prices

After a cool and wet spring, Flathead Valley producers are reporting high yields for cereal crops like winter wheat and barley while a mid-summer heat wave led to low canola yields.

For Heritage Custom Farming Owner Tryg Koch, he says early maturing crops like winter wheat and hay did well this season with yields about 20% above average. His other spring seeded crops like canola and spring wheat, however, didn’t fare well following a weeks-long spate of 90-degree temperatures throughout July.

“Winter wheat flowers in June and when those hot temperatures hit, the crop was already in a lot better shape and hay was already being cut,” Koch said. “It beat the heat.”

But with high winter wheat yields come diminished protein counts, a genetic compromise in crops that can be mitigated to an extent with nitrogen fertilizer.

“There’s a genetic tug-of-war happening,” said Joe Jensen, an agronomist at the Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Kalispell. “If you want really high yields, your protein will go down. But if you want high protein, your yield goes down.

According to the Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, protein counts averaged lower than normal at almost a full point below Montana’s typical 11.8% average statewide.

“Yields were high, but it came as a small loss in protein,” Jensen said.

Spring wheat yields were down 25% average for Koch while his canola crop was also down due to the mid-summer heat wave.

“When we’re stuck in a month of 90-degree heat, the canola will start aborting the flowers and you lose a lot of yield potential,” Jensen said.

Alfalfa also did well due to its early maturity, and Jensen said many producers were able to time their irrigation to make three cuts.

“It just comes down to the number of growing degree days and water – if you have water, heat and then you cut, this valley can get started with alfalfa a little sooner,” Jensen said. “I think the season further reiterates that anything we can put in the ground in the winter is a big boon for the valley.”

Jensen says the research center is working on new winter varieties for the future to help producers stay ahead of summer heat waves, which includes a new winter barley variety that is anticipated for 2025. Agronomists are working to breed a winter canola, but winter kill has been an issue in the past.

Other elements like wind and rain events that occurred right before harvest also impacted yields, and Flathead Valley producers said a windstorm knocked many of the pods off their canola crops.

Pulse crops like lentils and peas experienced a good growing season but farmers say the yields suffered following late summer rain, creating difficult harvesting conditions as the moisture pushed the lentils into the ground while pea pods popped open.

“You can’t get to them,” Koch said. “When the pods get wet and then dry out, they pop open and fall on the ground. The big windstorm that we had – that didn’t help either.”

While producers report high yields for winter wheat crops in the Flathead Valley, prices have fallen dramatically from last year, dropping to $4.70 per bushel compared to $10 a year ago. Canola prices dropped from $11 per bushel to $8.

The drop in price is attributed to a greater supply, but experts say the global market has impacted domestic prices in the United States due to the war in Ukraine.

According to analysts with U.S. Wheat Associates, world wheat prices have steadily dropped since the height in May 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine as ample wheat stocks from Russia and record exports flow from the Black Sea.

As prices fall, input price trends lag while output prices fall, resulting in tighter profit margins for producers, which influences long-term profitability and planting decisions.

“That’s the detriment – winter wheat prices are as low as they have been in a long time,” Koch said.

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