Craig: winter wheat for 2008

[disker]

Hi Craig,
Just trying to decide about some winter wheat for 08 and I see that on the CWB site bellatrix is not included in the $10 premium for next year as they are changing the program. No storage either but that is not usually an issue. Just curious as to what varieties you have seen grown with success and are on the program. Have you seen the Buteo variety?
I have a neighbor that was in Washington and he said the elevators there were paying just over $7.00/bushel US for HRW which I think is equivalent quality to the varieties in the select program, has anyone looked into buying back grain and hauling it south?

p.s. How is harvest coming along?
Curt

[craig]

Disker Will do some more checking on Bellatrix but not aware that it has been removed from Program. Changes made to the select program I believe are a positive as it hopefully opens up early delivery of select varieties. The $10 premium is kind of misleading as select has it's own pricing now and doesn't really need to be compared to standard winter wheat. Few notes on varieties. Bellatrix has lost some favour in the south because it seems to be particularly suceptible to strip rust. Whether that will be an issue further north remains to be seen. Radiant is quickly growing in acres especially in the south but I am concerned about maturity in the parkland. I would suggest a week to 10 days later than Falcon. While we are still talking August that delayed maturity may mean harvest will start to overlap with early spring crops. On the plus Radiant shows great drought tolerance. I am not that familar with Buteo but did see a seed growers crop east of Lacombe. May have a fit in the parkland. We are about 1/2 done harvest of our winter wheat although we have dried most of it. Weather crappy cool and showery. Fields have ranged from about 65 to 85 for field averages.We thought we might have done better but the excess moisture in the spring did stress areas of the fields and really brought yields down in those areas. I expect we will see same or worse in our spring crops.