Alternative Crops

Alternative Crops

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Talking with DTN/The Progressive Farmer Markets Editor Katie Micik, who happens to be the director of their confidence index she noted that with an over abundance of wheat throughout the world, there might be room for wheat producers to turn to alternative crops. "I think what we are going to see is a lot of wheat growers this year are going to try and look at alternative crops. We might see sorghum acreage increase in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska where the land is more marginal and suited for something like sorghum instead of wheat. Another prophet comes to mind and I have heard that it is lucrative, great for the soil and sustainable is canola. Yes. There may be an increase in canola in certain parts of Kansas and Oklahoma where they have some experience with that crop, maybe even up into North Dakota and Montana. Especially in Montana, anywhere is where there is a captive oil market like you have out where you are David and in Montana and North Dakota where everything depends on being shipped and the wheat supplies are so high. I think alternative crops like canola, the pulses, dry, edible beans, I think farmers are looking at those more this year. I think that will be a bigger part of their rotation simply because putting all their eggs in the wheat basket is a really poor decision when we’ve got domestic stocks that are almost 50%.” With ongoing global row crop surpluses, farmers see little hope to improve incomes this year
Previous ReportGenome editing is Mother Nature
Next ReportMonrovia