Locally, the 2023 winter wheat harvest is expected to be wrapping up by this weekend into early next week, while across the state it continues to linger moving westward.
At American Plains Co-op, Chief Operations Officer Jeff Mauler in Great Bend said Monday that their organization was currently at about 30% of an average harvest, with a normal harvest usually finished by the early part of July.
Through the Independence Day holiday in northern Barton County, Dean Stoskopf of Hoisington estimated up to 90% of his acres would not be harvested due to the drought, having gone for about a year without an inch of moisture.
Stoskopf abandoned 80% of his planted acres and chose not to spray the remaining 200 acres.
What did come in tested at about 12% moisture with an average weight at 60 pounds and protein at 12.8%.
Last year, in the second year of the drought affecting approximately two-thirds of the state, Barton County averaged a 40.2 bushels per acre yield for a total 5.423 million bushels harvested on 143,000 acres planted.
Latest outlook
The 2023 winter wheat harvest continues to linger as late-starting combines in the west are moving into areas with more extreme drought conditions and more abandoned acres. Conditions are below average but better than expected as producers battle pressure from late-growing weeds. Meanwhile, those with wheat left to cut have been facing rain delays with some hail.
Overall, there is little to look forward to about this year’s crop, as approximately 40% of planted acres were abandoned.
From July 3-9, there were only 4.1 days suitable for fieldwork, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop progress report. Harvest is now 59% complete, well behind 93% last year and 84% for the average.
Farmers are balancing a mix of emotions from frustration caused by having to wait for conditions to dry, stress of potential hail and other weather events, with joy from these recent rains.
Northwest of Hays, Eric Werth, general manager at Golden Belt Co-op, acknowledges some of the struggles he has seen in Ellis county.
“We are really just waiting for it to dry out around here,” Werth said.
Werth speculates they are about 90% wrapped up with harvest for this year. Another stressor that Werth describes is the amount of weeds that the rain has brought with it.
After a late start on June 21, Werth reports that he is expecting probably 55% of the quantity they have gotten in years past. Yields are averaging around 30 bushels per acre, with some brighter spots getting up to 40 bushels per acre.
“That is definitely not the majority, though,” Werth says. “The (Westbred) Grainfield variety is one that seems to be doing well this year.”
Looking at test weights is encouraging for this area, though, seeing those come in around 62 pounds per bushel. However, proteins have been relatively low this year. He guesses they have taken in about 450,000 bushels so far. He said most of the wheat his elevator receives ends up at flour mills.
Along with the rain, northwest Kansas has been hit with hail storms. Fortunately, not much of the crop has been destroyed. Smith and Phillips counties are expecting to see more rain and storm chances in the upcoming week.
Elevators and farmers aren’t the only ones waiting for conditions to dry. Custom harvest crews like MJB Harvesting out of Grainfield in western Kansas are anxiously waiting to get out and begin harvesting. So far, MJB Harvesting has only been able to cut one field while in Kansas.
Mark Bosse, owner of MJB, shared that nearly all of their customers in Kansas have been affected by either hail or drought, or both. Fields that were going to be decent are now looking to only be 15-35 bushels per acre. The one field the MJB crew has been able to cut so far yielded about 35-40 bushels per acre. Several producers along the Gove and Lane county line will not even harvest their crop.
Composed of local people, high schoolers and J-1 visa employees, the MJB harvesting crew has been on the road since May 22. They started in Texas and will go all the way up into Montana. Although conditions were good in Texas, the wheat got bleak as they progressed north. Fortunately for them, crop conditions are looking up for areas north of Kansas, rounding out a very interesting wheat crop year.
Kansas Wheat contributed to this report.
