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Kentucky’s rise in wheat acres provides added benefits to farmers

There’s been an uptick of wheat acres in Kentucky, according to Agronomist Chad Lee.

“Because the fall was dry and farmers had opportunity to plant wheat, there are a few more acres that got planted,” he says. “But there’s also a lot of cover crop that went in too. And so, we’re going to find out in the next two weeks which of those fields were designed for grain and which ones were designed to cover crop.”

He says regardless of the reason, it’s a good thing.  “Even in our long-term, no-till fields our rainfall patterns have generally been higher over the winter and we’ve seen some erosion taking place these last 6-7 years where we didn’t normally see that before,” he says. “And so having the fields covered with an intentional crop is a really good thing.”

Lee, with the University of Kentucky Extension, tells Brownfield it’s helping farmers diversify their marketing opportunities.  “If a farmer can produce really good quality wheat, they’ve got a market ready to buy it at a good price,” he says. “And secondly, we’ve seen our double crop soybean yields improve over the last 7-8 years, partly because of some changes in rainfall pattern.”

And, he says there are proven long-term benefits to having wheat in a crop rotation. “We know historically the corn yields tend to be better in those fields as well,” he says. “In fact, I would argue that wheat for grain is by far the best cover crop we’ve got.”

According to the latest Crop Report from the USDA, 64% of the winter wheat crop is rated good to excellent with 40% headed.

AUDIO: Chad Lee, University of Kentucky