South Dakota Winter, Spring Wheat Plantings Down

Winter wheat acreage planted in fall 2009 in South Dakota was down 26 percent from the year before, coming to a total of 1.25 million acres, a major decline from the 1.70 million acres in 2008.

Of those acres expected to be for harvest, as of conditions on June 1, 1.18 million should be harvested, a decrease of 350,000 last year. That's 23 percent down from the 1.53 million harvested the year before.

Spring wheat plants came in at 1.4 million acres, dropping 7 percent, or 100,000 acres from 2009. Of those, 1.37 million acres were meant for harvest, also down 7 percent.

Plantings of durum wheat stood at 10,000 acres, and increase of 1,000 over last year, with about 9,000 acres of that to be harvested for grain this year.