Positive harvest outlook for 2022

ODESSA – Due to more moisture in the area, local farmers are hopeful for a better wheat harvest this year.

"Last year's white protein levels in the wheat were pretty high," Mark Cronrath of Odessa Trading Company said. "We are expecting a different outcome this year."

The white protein levels jumped to 12% in 2021.

"Our foreign buyers prefer their wheat to have that 8-10.5% range," Cronrath said.

"We are looking to start harvesting around the 27th of July," he added.

Cronrath commented that through history, the end of July was when wheat harvest would start, but due to weather changes it had been earlier in recent years.

"There is canola coming in down south," Beau Duff, CFO of Highline Grain Growers, said. "We are a couple weeks behind schedule."

Duff said this year will likely be considerably better than the harvest for 2021.

He reported in March that he saw a 60% yield in 2021 crops.

Cronrath had reported he saw a 40-50% yield in the 2021 crops.

Harvest had started late June and was completed by late July last summer.

Wheat had dropped to $1.50 a bushel.

Some farmers are expected to hold onto their crops for a better price.

By the end of the summer in 2021, wheat had risen to $10 dollars a bushel.

An outlook in March projected that the county would have 33-40% higher temperatures and 33-40% below normal precipitation this summer.