Latest local news, weather and high school sports for Tri-State area

Wheat is an important part of our diets.  It's in just about everything, from your morning breakfast cereal to the cookies you leave for Santa.  The price of wheat has skyrocketed. It closed at nine dollars and 75 cents on the Chicago Board of Trade Wednesday afternoon.  Tuesday, wheat closed at nine dollars and 52 cents.

We found out more on wheat growth and prices for this KHQA FactFinder Report.  We spoke with Mike Roegge, a crop specialist with the U of I extension in Adams County.  He told me that Illinois has grown the most wheat in 15 years.  He says according to data, Adams, Brown, Hancock, Pike, Scott, McDonough, and Schuyler counties have grown more than 50-thousand acres of wheat this year.  Last year, those counties grew approximately 45-thousand acres.  We found out why the cost has increased.

"The same thing occuring in corn and soybean is occuring in wheat, it's all supply and demand," Mike Roegge said.

Roegge is the crop specialist with the University of Illinois extension in Adams County.  He says demand has gone up because there's been a worldwide shortage of wheat for the past two growing seasons. He told me Australia has had half the crop it normally grows because of dry conditions, Russia's crop is down, as well as other European countries.

"Australia exports most of their commodities, because they're not able to export those, the people that usually buy from those markets are coming to our market to buy our wheat. That's why we're seeing an increase world wide," said Roegge.

That can only be good news for farmers.

" Farmers are in a very good position right now to see the highest prices ever...it's almost like you can't lose growing any of them, because we're seeing the highest prices ever, Roegge said.

I spoke with Quincy Broadway Hy-Vee manager Tim Stupka. He told me with the exception of flour, he hasn't seen an increase in food prices. But keep watching, because he expects there to be an increase sometime next year once major food companies have analyzed their costs.

I also spoke with Agronomy Specialist with the University of Missouri extension Alex Carpenter.  She told me that counties in our Missouri viewing area have seen a five percent decrease in planted wheat.  This year, farmers planted 108-thousand acres.  Last year, they planted118-thousand acres.  Carpenter says last years Easter freeze damaged a lot of wheat crops, and there wasn't a lot of seed for the year.