Price surge will add millions in value to Minn. wheat crop

Wheat prices climbed by 8 percent Thursday, and that surge will add millions of dollars in value to Minnesota's wheat crop.

A severe drought in Russia has damaged that country's wheat crop, sparking fears of inadequate world supplies, sending wheat prices sharply higher. Minnesota Wheat Growers Executive Director Dave Torgerson said prices have jumped about $2 a bushel, more than 30 percent, since late June.

"This month has been pretty much prices going up pretty much every day," Torgerson said.

Torgerson said farmers like the higher prices, but wonder how long they'll last.

"The most volatility comes when there's the most uncertainty, and so people are trying to figure out what's going to happen," he said. "And we're going to see these prices spike. Wheat growers have seen things like this happen in the past, and they know the prices will come down again."

Minnesota farmers are expected to harvest as much as 100 million bushels of wheat this year, but not all of the crop will capture the current high prices. Many farmers sell part of their crop on the futures market months before they're harvested. Those prices earlier this year were well below current levels.