via Yahoo:
America’s wheat fields have become so plagued by drought that farmers are now poised to abandon crops at the highest rate in more than a century.
Producers are expected to harvest about 67% of their planted acres, the US Department of Agriculture said Friday. If realized, that would be the lowest harvest ratio since 1917, the agency said in a monthly report.
Years of dry conditions on the US Plains have taken their toll on America’s famed fields of grain. Some wheat plants this season were so stunted by a lack of moisture that they won’t produce so-called heads of grain, leaving little reason to harvest them. Farmers can instead file crop-insurance claims for failed acres, or choose to plant something else. Next week, an annual tour in the top wheat-growing state of Kansas will allow analysts to survey fields and make production estimates.
“We’ll see short wheat, thin stands, some wheat that looks really good and a lot of fields that aren’t going to be harvested,” Justin Gilpin, chief executive officer of the trade group Kansas Wheat, said of next week’s crop tour.
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