Record Winter Wheat Crop in Illinois

John Ernst, a Madison County farmer and president of the Illinois Wheat Association, apparently wasn’t the only wheat grower to reap the rewards of a productive crop this season.

Winter wheat yields topped existing records this year in Illinois by a whopping 8 bushels per acre, while growers nationally harvested a record average 53.9 bushels per acre, up 3.4 bushels from the June forecast and 11.4 bushels above last year’s output.

“My wheat was the best I ever raised,” Ernst recently told FarmWeek. He reported some 100-plus yields with a farm average above 90 bushels per acre.

Statewide, USDA last week pegged the average wheat yield at 75 bushels per acre, which smashes the previous record of 67 bushels and last month’s estimate of 68 bushels.

“It was above-average quality and much better than last year, which was probably the most problematic quality wheat we’ve had in a long time,” Steve Rommelman, of Rommelman Brothers Farm in Washington County, told FarmWeek after harvest in recent weeks.

“One of the reasons yields were so good is test weights were good,” he noted.

Overall, winter wheat production nationwide totaled 1.63 billion bushels, up 8 percent from the June forecast and 19 percent from last year.

The quality and quantity of wheat this year seem to be selling points for the crop. USDA last week raised its feed and residual use of wheat estimate by 100 million bushels and boosted exports 25 million bushels to 925 million bushels.

If realized, U.S. wheat exports would reach a three-year high.

However, the boost in demand won’t eat through all the additional wheat amassed by the phenomenal harvest.

USDA last week raised ending stocks of wheat 55 million bushels nationwide to 1.105 billion bushels, which represents the largest amount of wheat stocks on hand since 1988-89.