Wheat quality/prices

[charliep]

What quality of wheat did everyone take off. My assumption has been that there has been fair bit of feed wheat harvested in Alta. but people in the grain trade indicate its hard to find. On a related/interesting topic, is it time to buy wheat calls yet?

[pgluca]

Regarding what quality of wheat was harvested, I am from the extreme southern part of Alberta and the quality of wheat here is primarily down graded by shrunken kernels (over four percent) which would theoretically make it feed. However I would guess that 90% or better of the affected grain will be blended up to #1 or #2. As to buying wheat calls I would expect you to know a lot more about the advisability of that than I do........

[jwright]

Here in east central Alberta my wheat was 2, 13.6% protein. There is a lot of swathed wheat that will grade 3 or feed due to sprouting.

[monaco]

We farm in the south Peace District near Grande Prairie - the hard red varieties are mostly a poor 3 and the CPS varieties a poor 2 . I suspect there will also be a significant amount of feed wheat in the north Peace where harvest conditions were less favorable .

[monaco]

Interesting that blending opportunities will salvage a grade for you.

[TOM4CWB]

THalpenny,

I question why the CWB cannot set up a grid that pays a wheat producer for the intrinsic value of the wheat, rather than for the specific set grade. In the Canola industry we try to acheive as much #1 as possible, especially when exporting.

Now in the US they have a grid system for shriveled, immature, frosted, Dark hard vitrous kernals, and weight. All these factors make up the product, but the farmer gets paid for what they produce, rather than how well they are at blending grain!

Wouldn't it be better to let the person responsible for the quality be responsible for the blending, for at least theoretically, a needed specification can be met rather than over delivering quality and getting paid nothing for it?