Apr. 30--State wheat farmers lost nearly $5 million an hour for every hour of freezing weather their fields endured in mid-April.
According to an Oklahoma State University report issued Tuesday, wheat farmers in western Oklahoma lost as much as 41 percent of their crop April 11-13.
"Based on $4 wheat, there's a $336 million loss," said Terry Detrick, president of the Oklahoma Wheat Growers Association. "That's a significant loss."
The western half of the state was expected to harvest 5.3 million acres of wheat this year, almost 80 percent of the state's crop. About 13 percent of that acreage was lost in the freeze, according to the report that is being distributed to county Cooperative Extension Service agents.
"There are some fields that are not going to be damaged," Detrick said. "There are some that are going to suffer significantly."
Fields in southwestern Oklahoma, where earlier ripening varieties were planted, suffered the most in the unseasonable freeze. Fourteen of 20 southwestern counties lost 40 percent or more of their projected wheat yield. Seven counties lost more than half their estimated wheat yield, with Kiowa County production expected to drop the most -- 67 percent -- from 8.5 million bushels to 1.9 million bushels.
Overall acreage harvested in the southwest was expected to decline 21 percent due to the freeze. In Custer County, the area's leading wheat producer, production is expected to drop 38 percent, from 8.8 million bushels to 5 million bushels.
Later-maturing varieties in the denser wheat country stretching from the Panhandle
into the northern center of the state fared somewhat better. Overall wheat acreage harvested was expected to decline only 7 percent, but the yield on those acres was expected to decline nearly one-third. A projected harvest before the freeze of 127.4 million bushels shrank to 88 million bushels, according to the report.
"This is not going to be good," Detrick said. "After three years of disappointing crops, and four of the last six being bad, a lot of people were hoping for a good year."
The OSU report follows Monday's Oklahoma Agricultural Statistics Service report that showed 24 percent of the state crop suffered heavy damage, and 38 percent suffered moderate damage, in the freeze.
Final damage will not become clear until farmers start cutting the grain in June. Whether losses prove devastating for the state's second-most valuable agricultural product -- trailing only cattle -- depends on weather during the rest of the growing season, and the extent of damage on the 1.5 million acres in eastern Oklahoma that support wheat.
With ideal conditions and yields, the state could come close to an average harvest, about 150 million bushels. Continued cool, wet weather, however, already has caused some concern.
"Two years ago we had an ideal crop until the first of May," state statistician Barry Bloyd said. "Then we got some wet, cool days ideal for disease."
Those same conditions, particularly dewy mornings, have persisted since the freeze, Bloyd said. Overall crop conditions also have fallen, with 35 percent of the wheat acreage ranked poor to very poor, according to the statistics service. Two weeks ago, 9 percent of the crop received a poor rating and none of it received very poor marks.
"There is extensive damage," Detrick said. "This is not good."
Last year, drought pulled production down to a 25-year low of 85.5 million bushels -- a little better than half a crop. Last year's total followed disappointing harvests of 109.2 million bushels in 1995 and 143.1 million bushels in 1994.
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(c) 1997, The Tulsa (Okla.) World. Distributed by Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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