Langlade County Leader In Oat Harvest

In Langlade County, oats and potatoes go hand-in-hand.

According to Marie Graupner, the county’s land conservationist, Langlade County was the largest oat-producing county in Wisconsin in 2016.

The reason is tied to the much betterknown potato crop. Growers typically plan oats as a fallow crop, to allow potato fields to regain nutrients. And those oats flourish in the rich silt loam surrounding Antigo and throughout the flats.

According to figures provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service, 653,000 bushels of oats were harvested across Langlade County in 2016. Oats were planted across 10,000 acres, with 7,860 actually harvested. Yield was 83.1 bushels per acre, third highest in the state.

Those numbers, while impressive, fall short of 2015, when the county saw 11,200 acres of oats planted and 10,800 acres harvested. Yield was 90.6 bushels per acre for a total of 978,000 bushels.

Statewide 6.6 million bushels were harvested from 100,000 acres. Average yield was 66 bushels per acre.

Grant was the second largest producing county with 515,000 bushels, followed by Marathon, with 338,000.

The Southwest and Southeast districts had higher yields in 2016 compared to 2015, while the remaining district yields fell. Price County had the largest decrease of 28.8 bushels. Polk and Dodge counties also had decreases of over 20 bushels per acre, decreasing 27.6 and 21.6 bushels, respectively.

Washington County, the highest yielding county in both 2015 and 2016, increased 16.0 bushels per acre from 99.0 bushels per acre in 2015 to 115.0 bushels in 2016. Calumet was second at 85.5 bushels per acre.

Washington County had the greatest increase in yield from 2015, at 16.0 bushels. Green Lake and Wood counties showed the next largest increase in yield, at 7.5 bushels. Eight other counties had increases in yield from the previous year.

Source: Antigo Daily Journal