Weather and crop rotations impact South Dakota winter wheat planting

FORT PIERRE, S.D. — Winter wheat planting is underway across South Dakota but is slightly behind last year.

According to the South Dakota crop progress report from the National Agricultural Statistics Service, as of Oct. 15, winter wheat planted was at 85%, below 88% this time last year and the average of 89% for this week.

Emergence is at 48%, behind the 53% emerged last year.

While the official acres planted reports won't be released until January, Cody Hostler, owner and manager of Sioux Nation LLC in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, said acres planted in the central South Dakota area are down from last year. This is something that is being reflected in winter wheat seed sales.

"The reason they are down is because we had a little bit of a crop rotation. There was probably more corn and more beans planted. Not really a place to plant wheat," Hostler said.

Weather has played a role in winter wheat planting this season.

"We were really wet this spring, but now we are quite a bit drier. So, we actually had some guys that have stopped planting right now," Hostler said. "It just got too dry was kind of the main reason why everybody didn't plant as much."

Planting usually starts around the first of September in the Fort Pierre area, Hostler said.

"We did have some earlier guys go because we had a little moisture to start, so we saw a lot of certified forage wheats also. Those guys like to get them in early, get some growth on the wheat so maybe they could graze cattle on the if they had to," he said.

Moisture is going to be key for a good upcoming winter wheat crop.

"Hopefully we get some moisture this winter. We always bank on that," Hostler said. "There is a lot of stubble, so hopefully we will catch some snow. We would like to see a good inch of rain right now, that would be really nice, to put some antifreeze in the soil to get the winter wheat through the winter."

Hostler says that if they do receive more moisture soon, he expects the acres of planting winter wheat to increase on some of the recently harvested crop fields.

"We would see some soybean ground going back, some milo ground getting planted back, some stuff like that, they would get rolling again," he said.