Limited yield: High costs force Northwest Montana farmers to restrict wheat planting

[u/MT_News]

https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2026/may/10/wheat-from-montana-is-high-quality-but-now-costly-to-grow-for-some-farmers/

Wheat is Montana’s top agricultural crop. Known for its high quality, the state’s wheat makes its way around the world, eventually becoming a variety of baked goods, noodles and pasta.  

But turning the grain into staple foods sold at the bakery and served on the dinner table is facing challenges, as market constraints and the high cost to produce a decent yield have led some Flathead farmers to forgo planting this spring.    

Tryg Koch is watching his 500 acres of winter wheat come along, but he’s not planting spring varieties this year. For the co-owner of Heritage Custom Farming, the decision has to do with the cost of production.  

The crop requires more fertilizer to produce the protein content in hard red spring wheat, which is what makes it so valuable.  

“With winter wheat, it doesn't require the same protein. So, you can use less fertilizer and it yields more — there’s still a lot of wheat being grown. It's just right now with hard red spring wheat, it costs more to grow because it needs more fertilizer to get that higher protein, and then it yields less,” he said. 

Fertilizer prices have soared globally since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, leading to a slowdown in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas. 

Limited yield: High costs force Northwest Montana farmers to restrict wheat planting | Daily Inter Lake

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[u/aircooledJenkins]

Damnit, Donald. Stop fucking up the planet.

[u/phdoofus]

Have the day you voted for. You were warned pretty explicitly about the tariffs even before he was elected. Even the national Farm Bureau issued a warning. You still voted for him. Then you got the bonus war. Oh look. Farm bankruptcies are way up.

[u/Otherwise-Ad2572 → u/phdoofus]

Farm bankruptcy and restricted planting goes far beyond the farmer. We'll see it in our grocery stores. Their voting affects us all.

[u/phdoofus → u/Otherwise-Ad2572]

Our prices go up but they lose 'the family farm', probably to JD Vance and Friends (see AcreTrader)

[u/afailedturingtest → u/Otherwise-Ad2572]

I work in a grocery store rn, we are being shorted on multiple orders. It's already started we're just trying to hide it rn.

[u/Outdrfun_MT]

fafo