One item is that the 2007 world wheat crop is in development with the winter wheat crop nearing harvest and spring wheat nearing the completion of planting. This is typically a time of year when wheat prices trend lower because of the pending winter wheat harvest, which will begin filling the pipelines. However, bullish USDA reports, the uncertainty of damage to the winter wheat crop, and better than expected export sales have combined to keep prices better. Peterson said a lot depends on...

Specialty crops: Supporters in Congress are trying to increase market access, research and nutrition programs for the state's fruit and vegetable producers. Research funding for specialty crops is among the dozens of proposals that will be considered in the legislation, which was last written in 2002 and gives farmers payments and other help to supplement their incomes, support crop prices and manage supplies. Farm bill: Michigan agriculture is anticipating Congress' work on the federal...

Seeding of wheat acres began the first week of September and progressed slightly behind average through September. Dry weather the first week of October provided farmers with 6.7 days suitable for field work which pushed wheat seedings to 75 percent complete, three percent ahead of the five-year average. Expected winter wheat production up 24 percent. Wheat jointing has been ahead of normal this spring with 92 percent of the wheat jointed on April 29. Wheat condition also dropped from 77...

State farmers lose many fruit crops, corn and wheat. It's been a disheartening spring for Tennessee growers and the effects will linger into summer. The sudden cold snap wiped out many fruit crops and hurt the state's corn and wheat. April arrived with promise, but then it froze for about five straight nights. March had been unseasonably warm. And if that wasn't bad enough, snow followed.

Earlier on Friday, weather forecasters said about 60 percent of crops sown to the 2007 harvest were suffering from a drought which could depress the harvest. Leading agriculture consultancy UkrAgroConsult said this week it had revised the 2007 wheat crop outlook to between 16 and 17 million tonnes from the previous estimate of 17. He said severe drought was likely to continue over the next five to seven days and that would worsen the state of the crops. The ministry proposed no revision to...

The wet conditions also make wheat susceptible to bending in wind,not to mention the damage possible from even the smallest hail. The frustrating part is, the crop is good, farmers just can't harvest until it dries out, which could take four to five days of dry weather. You multiply that over several thousand acres - if a guy is farming that big, it can be a very very big economic loss. Farmers don't have much time to harvest this year's crop. That's kind of like 'would you rather drop a...