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| No. The increase in corn and soybean acres and decrease in wheat has many factors. One of those factors is that North Dakota has generally been in a wetter cycle the past 10 maybe 20 years. Bigger factors are widespread adoption of notill in the western part of the state which increases water infiltration, holding capacity and soil organic matter. This benefits corn more than wheat because we can keep corn alive through a dry spring and get good yields with fall rains where years ago the corn would’ve just dried up in a dry spring with conventional tillage. Another factor is availability of good yielding early maturing hybrids, The hybrids on my farm range from 72 day up to 81 day. The price differential between spring wheat and corn also plays in, but also the issue most farmers across the state have with discounts on spring wheat. In the east they generally deal with discounts from scab and VOM, in the west that can be an issue in The very wettest years, but we usually are dealing with wheat discounts from ergot and sometimes low test weight from a lack of moisture during grain fill. I am only 60 miles from Montana and although the returns from spring wheat and corn are very close, surprisingly I have found that corn has been more consistent with less variability from year to year. | |
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North Dakota Drought?
