Oklahoma winter wheat growers have wrapped up harvest for a bumper crop. USDA’s latest crop estimates pegs the Oklahoma wheat crop at 113.4 million bushels.
Mike Schulte, executive director of the state Wheat Commission, says that it is one of the best crops he has seen in his life.
“I think we are right on par with USDA’s estimates, record breaking yields for Oklahoma this year... we’ve never seen a 42 bushel per acre average yield for the state; certainly, I think that that number is as close to correct as can be, based on the yields we’ve seen from central and northern Oklahoma,” Schulte said.
The southern part of the state had little to no yields reported after an April freeze damaged crops, but otherwise, quality was consistent.
“Sixty-two pound average test weight from border to border across the state, so even if we had lower yields in southwest Oklahoma, the quality was there on what was harvested,” Schulte said. “Proteins were all over the board, anywhere from 8 percent to as high as 15.5 percent...we’re going to be at a 11.2 percent protein average for the region.”
The quality will be appealing to the market, according to Schulte.