Cold Snap Worries Wheat Farmers Subzero Temperatures Threaten Vulnerable Sprouts, Seed Crowns

Washington’s farmers have good reason to wish for a white Christmas this year.

With this week’s cold snap and even colder dry wind possibly blowing in from the northeast, the winter wheat seeds planted this fall are in danger of freeze-drying.

But a good blanket of snow covering the crop would help.

“That helps keep the wind off,” said Brett Blankenship, an Adams County farmer. A nice white layer would keep the soil warmer than the air and prevent the crowns of the seeds from being killed by cold.

Unfortunately, neither he nor most Eastern Washington wheat farmers have any snow on their land.

“We’re very concerned, because it has been quite cold,” Blankenship said.

How much damage the last three days of below zero temperatures has caused, “we really won’t know until springtime,” said Steve Dofing, an extension specialist with Washington State University.

The cold weather may have already caused the tender sprouts to freeze and die, but the crown could easily send up new shoots when the weather warms, he said. “We’re not extremely worried.”

In Pasco, Walt Neff, farmer and president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, said he’s not too concerned about his wheat yet.

“It looks fine right at the moment,” he said. “It all depends on how much more below-zero weather we have with the northeast wind.”

If they lose their winter plantings, many farmers will seed another wheat crop this spring. The only difference is that spring wheat yields are 60 to 70 percent of what wheat planted in the fall will bring.

Farmers also will lose the $7 to $10 per acre they paid to seed this fall.

Douglas County has had some snow, but not enough.

“We’ve had weather like this before,” said Roger Wesselman, who has a small farm there. “If the winds don’t get too high, we’re OK.”

Lincoln County Farm Service Agency agent Don Graedel sees a bleaker picture. “There’s high probability that the county’s winter crops have suffered damage,” he said. “Right now it doesn’t look too good, especially in the north part of the county.”

With low wheat prices and intense global competition, farmers already have their work cut out for them, he said.

“As bad as this year has been from all the other standpoints, this is just one more peril that the farmer is faced with,” Graedel said. “Mother Nature is swinging her arms.”