USA: Barley seeding underway in Montana and Wyoming

Seeding is under way in southeastern Montana and northwestern Wyoming, Dave Dougherty of MillerCoors in Huntley, Mont. was quoted as saying by The Prairie Star on March, 23.

“We started a couple of weeks ago and are more than 50 percent done planting barley in Yellowstone and Big Horn Counties,” Dougherty said. “Producers are out today in this beautiful weather – it is 62 degrees right now and they are finishing up planting barley all over the region.”

He said the western and northern regions of Montana wouldn’t get started seeding until the end of the week.

“We are right on schedule here in Yellowstone County,” Dougherty said. “Throughout the entire state, we should have all the malting barley in by the last week in March.”

Malting barley producers in the region south of Hardin had more snow than other regions so they haven’t started seeding yet, he said.

And producers in northwestern Wyoming near Powell and around Worland, Wyo., who rotate their malting barley with sugarbeets and/or corn are also just starting to seed their barley, he said.

Of course, there are exceptions and it depends on where a farmer’s field is located, he said. Producers west of Billings, in south central Montana, and north of Hardin, in southeastern Montana, are one to two weeks ahead of other producers in seeding their crop.

According to Dougherty, all the malting barley for Miller/Coors is obtained through contracts with area barley producers. Their varieties are proprietary and the list is released to the producers so they know which varieties that the company is accepting.

Dougherty said most of their barley is grown under irrigation in the Yellowstone Valley but they do have barley grown on dryland acres too, he said.

“Irrigated producers are seeding into some good moisture,” he said.

Last year, malting barley producers had an excellent crop with more than 100 bushels/acre and the barley was high quality, Dougherty said. The crop in both Yellowstone and Big Horn Counties in Montana and northern Wyoming “looked great and we at Miller/Coors were very pleased with the crop in 2012,” he added.

In fact, Dougherty said the malting barley grown in the Yellowstone/Big Horn Counties regions is the “best in the entire nation. It is very high quality barley.”

According to Steve Lackman, Montana State University Extension agent in Yellowstone County, dryland producers had some dry conditions last fall and are looking forward to timely spring rains in 2013. Even the subsoil moisture is dry on the dryland acres, he said.

Last year, crops yielded low on dryland acres and hay producers had a tough year, too, he said.

“I talked with some producers this morning and everyone is concerned about the lack of snowpack this winter,” Lackman said. “We can really use some rain.”

Lackman said there was so little snow that in some areas the ground did not freeze because there wasn’t any water to freeze. Some cow/calf producers were able to dig posts for fencing all winter long because the ground didn't freeze.

But those producers would definitely appreciate some snow or rain to restore the subsoil and topsoil moisture, Lackman said.

“It was drier last year than I have ever seen it,” he said. “We thought there might be an outbreak of grasshoppers last year, but that didn't happen.

Breanne Ilse, MSU Extension agent in Big Horn County in southeastern Montana, said she has been out and about in the county and irrigated producers are just starting to plant their malting barley.

Ilse, who specializes in ruminant nutrition, said there are a lot of beef producers, both registered and commercial cattle producers, in the region. She has been on the job for a little over a year and really likes the challenge of the job.

Ilse said beef producers did lose some acres to fires last year after a summer of dry, hot weather. This spring, they are waiting to see how much moisture they get before deciding whether to add to their cow numbers, and are hoping to get some good rain so they can regrow some of their grass and forages.

Producers in the southern regions of Montana would like to grow more pulse crops like chickpeas, but they are having trouble finding a place to take their harvested crops, Lackman said. There is an elevator in Hardin that will take peas, Lackman said, but there aren’t any processing plants in the region.

“We have producers in northeastern Montana that make it work but they have places to market their pulse crops too. We really don’t,” he said.

In Bozeman, Mont., Perry Miller, MSU, said there were lots of producers who attended a meeting on pulse crops in the Golden Triangle region last week indicated they wanted to start planting some type of pulse crops, particularly peas. He said there were many places in those regions of the state that will take pulses and he suspected Montana producers would be adding more pulses to their rotations in the future.

The U.S. Drought Monitor for the beginning of March is showing some areas of drought but less than last month for southern Montana. The only area where there is extreme drought is a narrow area in south central Montana.

It is a different story for Wyoming with most of the state in the severe and extreme drought and one long area of exceptional drought in west central Wyoming.

But most sugarbeet, malting barley and hay producers in the northwestern part of Wyoming have access to irrigation, and are in good shape starting the spring growing season, Dougherty said.

27 March, 2013