Wheat acres up, alfalfa down in state

Wisconsin farmers planted about 320,000 acres of winter wheat last fall, according to a recent report by the Wisconsin field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

This is an increase of 55,000 acres from the crop harvested in 2012, which set a near record high average yield of 75 bushels per acre, falling just short of the 76.2-bushel average in 2006.

The report indicated a much smaller increase in winter wheat plantings across the United States. There was an increase of approximately one percent to 41.8 million acres. For all wheat varieties in the country, the anticipated planting for 2013 is 55.7 million acres.

An accompanying report indicated that Wisconsin farmers seeded 390,000 acres of alfalfa or alfalfa mixed with other forages in 2012. This is a decrease of 40,000 acres from 2011.

The national new seeding of alfalfa and accompanying forage mixes showed an increase of three percent from 2011. This put the 2012 seeding at 2.39 million acres.