A poor wheat harvest in Pennsylvania has flour mills looking outside the region to source grain.
Flour mills in southeastern Pennsylvania are looking for more than the usual amount of wheat from outside the region this year because of the low quality of most locally harvested grain.
As reported by Lancaster Farming, a long period of wet weather leading up to wheat harvest resulted in much of the crop coming in with low test weights, high vomitoxin levels, and low falling numbers that indicate germination is taking place in the kernels.
“Our local crop was the worst I’ve seen in 30 years of being here,” said Brian Conrad, president of F.M. Brown’s Sons Flour Milling division in Fleetwood.
Conrad said less than 2% of the mill’s soft red winter wheat will be sourced from local farms this year, compared to about 10% in more normal years.
A few local loads were suitable for flour milling but they made up a “very, very small percentage,” he said.
About 70% of the approximately 2 million bushels the mill processes annually, he said, is delivered by rail, mainly from Michigan and northwestern Ohio.
The bulk of the balance of the mill’s wheat comes from the Eastern Shore, where Conrad said some wheat suitable for flour was harvested this year. New Jersey also had some good wheat, he said.
“It’s very unfortunate when weather ruins a crop like this because it’s so important to have that relationship with local farmers,” Conrad said.
“We’ll rebound,” he added. “The farmers will keep planting more wheat and we’ll keep milling.”
Fungicide Effectiveness
Dick Cole, wheat buyer at Lititz-based Snavely’s Mill, which has four mills in the state and is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, said timely fungicide applications helped some farmers harvest better wheat.
The best local wheat he’s seen came from those who sprayed early as a preventive prior to pollination.
However, “even for people who sprayed there was no guarantee,” he said.
And while later curative fungicide applications can reduce vomitoxin levels in the head, he noted that didn’t happen this year.
Cole said about 40% of Snavely’s wheat typically comes from the southeastern and central parts of the state, with the balance coming from the Eastern Shore – where he estimated about 75% of this year’s crop was of milling quality – and southern New Jersey.
Some other areas such as York County and western Maryland also had some pockets of good quality wheat, he said. The crops from western Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio tend to be better as well.
The general low quality of most local wheat has made the mill look beyond its usual purchasing region.
“Our pooling area is much larger this year,” Cole said.
He urged farmers not to stop growing wheat because of one bad season, which he said only happens once in 10 or 15 years.
Depending on conditions, wheat can be more profitable than corn in some years, he said.