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2005 Wheat Crop: Vomitoxin Pressures Prices at Elevators

Posted on: Friday, 26 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

Aug. 26--Add vomitoxin to the list of wheat crop problems area farmers have had to stomach this year.

The rains and warm weather that produced a variety of leaf and head diseases in the 2005 crop also were ideal for spawning development of deoxynivalenol or DON, commonly known as vomitoxin. Wheat that contains levels exceeding 2 parts per million is discounted when farmers sell it at the elevator. The higher the levels of vomitoxin, the steeper the discount.

Vomitoxin can be a byproduct of Fusarium head blight, commonly known as scab. Warm, wet weather conditions during wheat flowering and filling are favorable for scab and vomitoxin development.

"Right now, the market discount is 10 cents (per bushel) for each half part over 2 parts per million," said Paul Coppin, manager of Reynolds (N.D.) United Farmers Co-op. "You're looking at 20 cents per part from 2 (parts per million) on up. It's rather significant."

When levels exceed 5 parts per million, some elevators cap the graduating discounts and instead offer a price for "any protein, any vomitoxin level," he said.

For example, Northwest Grain in St. Hilaire, Minn., was offering Thursday a price of $2.80 per bushel for wheat with "any pro, any vom," said Steve Miller, Northwest Grain location manager. That compares with the bid of $3.87 per bushel Northwest Grain was paying farmers with top-quality milling wheat.

Wheat containing vomitoxin levels of 2 to 4 parts per million are common at the elevator, and some samples have had levels as high as 8 parts per million, Miller said.

A wheat quality survey under way conducted by the North Dakota Agriculture Statistics Service and sponsored by the North Dakota Wheat Commission shows that the highest levels of vomitoxin are found in wheat in eastern North Dakota and northwest Minnesota, areas hit hard by summer rains, said Neal Fisher, North Dakota Wheat Commission administrator.

The survey, which is about half complete, is based on samples from farms across North Dakota, northern South Dakota, western Minnesota and eastern Montana. The levels of vomitoxin in the wheat samples ranges from zero to 4 parts per million, Fisher said.

The highest levels of vomitoxin generally are found in southeast North Dakota, which was inundated with rain this summer. Some northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota elevator managers also are reporting some of the highest vomitoxin levels they've seen in more than a decade.

"This is, unfortunately, one of the years that was conducive to a scab outbreak," Fisher said.

Farmers today are better educated about and have more "weapons," such as fungicide application and more tolerant scab wheat varieties, to battle scab and vomitoxin than they did during the early '90s, when the disease wiped out hundreds of thousands of acres of the crop in North Dakota and Minnesota, Fisher said. However, it is impossible to eliminate them if weather conditions are favorable during the critical wheat head development period.

"I think they could have sprayed six times and had vomitoxin," Coppin said. In the Reynolds area, where rains have fallen throughout the growing season, vomitoxin levels range from 0.5 to 8 parts per million, averaging about 2 parts per million.

"This is the first time we've had vomitoxin in 12, 13 years," Coppin said.

So far, most northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota farmers with wheat containing vomitoxin levels above 2 parts per million are storing their crop in hopes the wheat industry will have a better handle on how to deal with it later this fall.

"I think everybody's feeling on this is it will get better as times goes on," Fisher said, noting that the wheat quality survey results show vomitoxin levels have dropped as the harvest has moved west.

"In talking to the industry, people are fairly confident this is a manageable situation."

Fisher believes farmers will see lower discounts once the industry has things figured out.

Although the vomitoxin does create a problem for the wheat industry, there are some positive quality factors in the 2005 crop, he said. For example, the survey showed protein levels average about 14.5 percent, nearly a percentage above last year, and test weights are averaging above the wheat industry standard of 58 pounds per bushel.

"This is still a very marketable crop. Almost every year you have something" with which the industry must deal, Fisher said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

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Source: Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, N.D.)

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