Day 9, Kansas Wheat Harvest Report

This is day 9 of the 2015 Kansas Wheat Harvest Reports, brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and the Kansas Grain and Feed Association.

As harvest continues to progress, it is becoming more evident that the late season rains that saved much of the crop across the state came too little, too late for some pockets of Kansas wheat.

Larry Glenn of Frontier Ag, Inc. in Quinter, reported that his area is around 30-40 percent complete.

“We started off with a big surge,” said Glenn. “But the increasing weed pressure due to the thin stands is really putting a damper on things. It’s going to be a long harvest.”

So far Glenn has seen a range of 15-25 bushels per acre, a low yield for the area due to winterkill, drought and disease. Test weights for the area are around 57-58 pounds per bushel while protein is ranging 12.5-13 percent.

On the other hand, Lawrence Strouts, a Morris County farmer reported a yield range of 55-75 on the majority of his wheat, a range that is “above average for the area.”  Test weights for his fields averaged 63 pounds per bushel. Strouts added that he had fungicide applied on nearly all of his fields with the exception of one small one.

“That field saw a nearly 50 percent yield loss and 8 pounds per bushel less in comparison to a nearly identical field across the road that did receive fungicide,” said Strouts. “So spraying really paid off this year.”

Matt Splitter, who farms in southern Ellsworth and central Rice counties, reported that he finished harvesting 2,700 acres of wheat yesterday. While dryland wheat averaged 52 bushels per acre and test weights averaged 60 pounds per bushel, he said results from field-to-field varied greatly.

“The typical good fields were good; the typical poorer fields were poor,” he said.

Splitter attributed the difference in final yields to timing, explaining that earlier planted wheat following corn performed well while later planted fields following soybeans did not yield as much.   

The 2015 Harvest Report is brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and Kansas Grain and Feed Association.

by Jordan Hildebrand