Incentives were paid on 1,094 acres of winter cereals to 12 agriculture producers in Day County in 2006. The 2005 winter wheat crop was severely impacted by fusarium head blight or scab. This resulted in fewer producers seeding winter wheat in the fall of 2005. However, those producers who did seed winter wheat in 2005 had a very profitable winter wheat crop in 2006.

The profitability of the 2006 crop with good yields and increasing crop prices and DU’s Winter Cereal Program has encouraged a substantial increase in seeded acres this fall. DU Field Agronomist, Roger Knapp, estimates that more than 8,000 acres were seeded in the three-county project area (Brown, Day and Marshall) of South Dakota this fall.

Thanks to new funding support from private industry, Brown County was added to the South Dakota counties being served by the DU Winter Cereals Program in the fall of 2006. The first winter cereals contract was signed with an agriculture producer in Brown County this fall. Bayer CropScience and Syngenta Crop Protection are to be commended for their support of the DU Winter Cereals Program.