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Day 12, Kansas Wheat Harvest Report

By
Guest Columnist
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Kansas Wheat

This is day 12 of the Kansas Wheat Harvest Reports, brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Kansas Grain and Feed Association and the Kansas Cooperative Council.

 

Officially, the Kansas wheat harvest is 92 percent complete, well ahead of 55 percent complete last year and 72 percent for the five-year average, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service crop progress report for the week ending July 7, 2024. Northwest Kansas has the most remaining wheat to be cut at 70 percent harvested.

 

Kansas had widespread rain over the weekend, which kept harvest on Monday at a standstill for many areas. Still, the southwest area is about 91 percent complete and wrapping straggling fields after beginning harvest early – the first week of June compared to the normal Father’s Day start.

 

Lori Deyoe, grain originator with Skyland Grain, covers a wide swath of the western third of the state – from Leoti to the southern Kansas border and from the western border with Colorado to Kismet. Based in Ulysses in Grant County, she reported good weather throughout the growing season. Snow in December made the crop and the cooler, wetter weather in May during filling finished it nicely – for those that received those rains.

 

She estimated taking in more than double the wheat from last year’s slap in the face. After thinking this year’s harvest would be sub-average, the final numbers look to hit average or maybe even a tick better. The wheat in the bins is headed via truck to the mills near Wichita, fulfilling demand within the state.

 

Yields range from 10 to 85 bushels per acre for dryland wheat and 85 to 115 bushels per acre on irrigated fields. Test weights started out tremendous above 60 pounds per bushel at the start of harvest, but after much-needed rains moved in have gone down. Proteins have been extremely regionalized ranging from 10 percent to above 12 percent.

 

“Everybody is extremely happy with their farm averages coming in from the field,” Deyoe said. “Everyone is ecstatic we’re getting the rains we’re getting, but wish we had been done with harvest before they started.”

 

The gully-washer on Saturday night will benefit fall crops, keeping producers delayed from the one or two cutting days needed to fully wrap up harvest. Farmers near Lakin would have finished Sunday or Monday and custom harvest crews are making quick work of remaining fields around Johnson. Last, but not least, irrigated fields north of Ulysses will likely be the last few to be cut.

 

Near Norton, Chris Tanner started cutting his WestBred Grainfield wheat on Monday, June 24, only to be delayed by rain the next day. They had been cutting a phenomenal crop with yields between 50 and 60 bushels per acre, strong test weights ranging from 59 to 63 pounds per bushel and great protein at 12 to 14 percent.

 

“We are in a sweet spot here,” Tanner said.

 

He credited an ideal growing season to good moisture throughout the year. Sufficient moisture at drilling meant the wheat came up early with well-established stands. In the spring, the wheat emerged from dormancy early, but in good shape and the luck continued.

 

While the weather was on-track, fertilizer prices were high, and Tanner noted he spent money on fungicide applications due to rust pressure. Producers did abandon some fields due to Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus, which has been bad in the area, in addition to some yield loss from Barley yellow dwarf virus.

 

A couple of 1.5 inch rains and several smaller showers have decreased yields 10 to 12 percent, test weights down to 55 to 57 pounds per bushel and protein averaging in the mid-11s. Even with the rain detriment, the year should end above average by the time harvest wraps up by the end of this week.

 

This year’s harvest is in stark contrast to last year’s disaster when a lot of wheat in northern Norton County was abandoned due to drought. The residue from this year’s crop is some of the best Tanner has had in his career and will benefit his subsequent crops.

 

“The most exciting part of this year’s harvest is the residue,” Tanner said. “The most disappointing part is the price.”

 

As fields dry out and those last few acres are cut, the Kansas Wheat crew will issue the final Kansas wheat harvest report on Tuesday, July 9.

 

The 2024 Harvest Reports are brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Kansas Grain and Feed Association and the Kansas Cooperative Council. To follow along with harvest updates, use #wheatharvest24 on social media. Tag us at @kansaswheat on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share your harvest story and photos.

 

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Written by Julia Debes for Kansas Wheat

What’s in a (Medical Specialty) Name?

By
Guest Columnist
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0

Doctors are taught medical terms and jargon in medical school like a secret code. Many medical terms are rooted in Greek and Latin. Over the course of our training, these words become second nature and we become fluent in this medical language”, although we are also expected to talk to our patients using simple terminology. However, most specialties in medicine still use the original Greek and Latin roots for their names. Once you know where these names come from, everything makes sense.

Most names start with a Greek or Latin word followed by ” or ology” from Greek word ” which means the study of” or Science of”. Instead of calling themselves a heart doctor” we call them Cardiologists. Cardiology comes from the Greek word ” which means heart.” This trend follows for several other specialties. Lung doctors are Pulmonologists from the Latin Pulmon” which means ”. Obstetrics is from the Latin term ” which means midwife” or literally, one who stands opposite”. However, Gynecologist comes from the Greek term gyne” meaning woman”.

Liver doctors are called Hepatologists using the Greek terms Hepar” or Hepato” meaning of liver”. Hematologists are doctors who study blood and the term comes from the Greek work haimo” meaning blood”. Your skin specialists, the Dermatologists, get their name from the Greek work ” which means skin” or hide”. The Nephrologists, or kidney doctors, have taken the Greek root for kidney, which is nephros” to get their name. Neurologists study nerves, and the Greek term ” or neuron” means string or nerve”.

A Pathologist looks at tissue samples under a microscope in order to diagnose diseases. Their Greek root Pathos” comes from the terms for suffering” or disease”. This branch of medicine looks for the cause, development, as well as the natural progression of diseases. The term anesthesia was first used in the 1880’s, but it also comes from the Greek prefix an” which means without” combined with aisthesis” which means feeling” or perception”. That describes their goal for patients during surgery – to go without feeling” pain during a procedure.

Just when you think you know the rules, there is Endocrinology. Endocrinology studies the endocrine system which are the organs in the body the secrete hormones. ” is the Latinized form of the Greek word ” meaning secreting internally”. The term Rheumatologist is not quite as literal as some of the others. They specialize in diseases like arthritis and the name originates from the Greek word ” meaning that which flows” or current/stream”. This comes from a 17th Century idea that arthritis would flow throughout the body affecting many areas.

Hopefully this helps crack the code” of why different specialties have such different and unique names. You can impress your friends and family with this newfound knowledge. However your Cardiologist will be just as sweet if you call him/her a heart doctor”, because as Shakespeare’s Juliet asked, What is in a name?”

Jill Kruse, D.O. is part of The Prairie Doc® team of physicians and currently practices as a hospitalist in Brookings, South Dakota. Follow The Prairie Doc® at www.prairiedoc.org and on Facebook and

Instagram featuring On Call with the Prairie Doc®, a medical Q&A show providing health information based on science, built on trust, streaming live on Facebook most Thursdays at 7 p.m. central.

Lovina and Family Celebrate the Announcement of Next Family Wedding

By
tammiehoeme
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0

Lovina’s Amish Kitchen
Lovina Eitcher,
Old Order Amish
Cook, Wife &
Mother of Eight

 

July 27 was grandson Ryan’s fifth birthday. He was excited to be 5 years old. Our whole family gathered on July 24 for supper for son Joseph’s 22nd birthday. On the menu was mashed potatoes, gravy, barbequed chicken, tomatoes, sweet onions, green peppers, hot peppers, colby cheese, zucchini, brownies, and ice cream. We all ate on our front porch. Sister Verena also came for supper and stayed a few days. This was a short notice to have everyone for supper, and surprisingly it suited everyone.

I wish a happy belated 51st birthday to sister Emma, which was on July 19. Although we live four miles from each other, we didn’t see each other for a few weeks. We are both busy with our families and time has a way of slipping by.

Son Joseph and Grace’s wedding plans were announced at Grace’s church district, which is 10.5 miles from here. Our family attended, with Tim and Elizabeth having 17 miles (the farthest) to travel with horse and buggy. Our family and Grace’s family all spent the afternoon and evening at Grace’s house (where Joseph and Grace will have their future home). Joseph and Grace made supper for everyone, and we all ate before heading home. Everything was made on the grills, and we all ate outside.

Joseph is the first of our sons leaving home. We sure will miss him. He’s a great help here, and Joe depends on him a lot. The girls come home a lot for a day during the week, but Joseph works five days a week and will only be able to visit weeknights or weekends. Life goes on, changes come, and we must adapt to them.

On Saturday, Grace’s family assisted Dustin and Loretta (daughter) with preparations for the wedding. Joseph and Grace’s wedding will be held at Dustin and Loretta’s place, Lord willing. 

Sister Verena helped me freeze some sweet corn while she was here. We still have quite a bit in our garden. I was glad for her help. She is now staying with sister Emma for a few days. She spent a night and a day with daughter Lovina and Daniel, too. It makes time go much faster for her than to be home alone.

Last Sunday night our family gathered at Daniel and Lovina’s for supper. It was the first time I was there since Lovina lives there so I was glad to go. Lovina does well with having a crowd of people over. Daniel helped her make supper. I feel lazy when I get to sit around and not help. Haha! 

I was glad to take it easy though, as I slipped on a wet spot in the pole barn when moving the camp stove and hurt my back. I managed to wash laundry today but still have a sore hip and leg.

On Friday evening, Joe and I traveled the 11 miles to Joe’s sister Ruth and Chris’s house. Five of Joe’s siblings were gathered there for snacks after supper. It was good to see everyone. We had not seen or visited with Joe’s youngest sister Susan since she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been taking chemo, and it sure has taken its toll on her health. It was good to spend time with her. She is a single mother of three boys and needs our prayers. The chemo is making her so sick. She was only 15 when Joe’s mother died at age 54. Please pray for her, and she would enjoy cards of encouragement, I’m sure. Expenses are high and life hasn’t always been good to her. 

Joe’s sister Mary Ann and Jake were also there. (Jake still isn’t the best health-wise and gets around with the aid of a cane.) Mary Ann is the oldest of the 14 siblings. Three have passed away, so six out of the 11 living siblings were there. Also there was Loretta and Henry, Salome and Morris (from Kentucky), and of course Susan, Ruth, and Chris. Chris and Ruth’s daughter Lydiann was there, as she lives with her parents. 

Chris and Ruth moved from Oklahoma several years ago and built a new place. They have a nice home. This was the first time we were at their new place. It was an enjoyable ride, and we arrived back home around 10:30 p.m.

Daughter Verena has supper almost ready. On the menu is tacos and sweet corn. Yum! God’s blessings to all!

Onion Rings

Makes 2 to 4 servings

This is a recipe from my new cookbook, The Cherished Table. We have very nice sweet onions from our garden this year. I pulled all my onions since I always abide by the rule to not let the August sun hit your onions. 

¼ cup milk

1 egg, beaten lightly

2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoons salt

Oil or lard, for frying

1 large onion, sliced into rings about ½ inch thick

Mix together milk, egg, oil, flour, baking powder, and salt in a pie plate or shallow baking dish. Pour oil into a small heavy-bottomed pot to a depth of about 2 inches. Heat oil over medium heat until a deep-fry thermometer reads 375°F. Dip onion rings in egg mixture and fry in hot oil on each side until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate.

Lovina’s Amish Kitchen is written by Lovina Eicher, Old Order Amish writer, cook, wife, and mother of eight. Her three cookbooks, The Cherished Table, The Essential Amish Cookbook, and Amish Family Recipes, are available wherever books are sold. Readers can write to Eicher at Lovina’s Amish Kitchen, PO Box 234, Sturgis, MI 49091 (please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply); or email [email protected] and your message will be passed on to her to read. She does not personally respond to emails.

Thrown For A Loophole (Best Of)

By
Lee Pitts
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0
lee pitts

(1) Federal Tax: If your income was less than $3.75 in 2024 remit 15%. If it was greater than $3.75 but less than $39.99 multiply by 50%. If you made more than forty dollars send it.

(2) State Income Tax: For those of you living in most states cough up 12% of your “gross” pay to the state house. There is no state tax for residents of Texas and Wyoming which might explain why everyone is moving there.

(3) Sales Tax: In some states you will not be taxed on a loaf of bread. That is so that you will have sufficient energy to work and pay taxes. Other states will go ahead and charge a sales tax… for the loaf in their state capital. He already gets more bread than the bankrupt farmer who grew the wheat.

(4) Luxury Tax: This is to prevent you from doing anything that would detract from your ability to earn money to forward to the government. If you smoke…add 5%. If you drink alcohol….add 10%. And if you have sex add 15% in bed tax.

(5) Gas Tax: If you drive over 45 mph add ten percent. If you drive under 45 mph you can keep your federal tax money that was yours to begin with. Highway patrolmen and cars marked, “For Official Government Use Only”, are exempt from the tax and the speed limit. Gas Tax shall not be confused with the tax on your methane belching cows. You will find those charges listed under the all-new schedule C in the carbon credit section of your new climate-friendly and sustainable tax form.

(6) Corporate Tax: Television Church Conglomerates and non-profit foundations shall pay zero taxes. Bonafide exempt businesses shall be saved from the wrath of an IRS auditor if they tithe a third of what they make to the IRS. The IRS loves a cheerful giver.

(7) Self Employment Tax: Add 7% unless you are on food stamps or in Chapter Eleven.

(8) Property Tax: You shall be assessed one percent of the worth of your home in order that the Federal Government can maintain country club prisons to house federal judges, former dirty Congressmen, ex-United States Presidents. and their sons. (They need quiet and peaceful surroundings in which to write their memoirs they’ve already sold for twenty million dollars… tax free, of course.

(9) Schedule C. Miscellaneous permits and licenses for keeping dogs, building permits, business licenses and climate change penalties for breathing.

(10) Deductions: You may deduct the interest on your second home. This primarily applies to Congressmen who are the only people rich enough to have two homes.

Deductions for business meals shall be limited to 80% of their actual cost. Politicians getting fat at the public trough are exempt.

To compute your tax liability add lines 1 through 9 and subtract line 10 and divide by the square root of line 4. If your tax liability is greater than 100%… go directly to jail. Do not pass go. If your tax liability is less than 100% multiply the remainder by 50% and remit as Windfall Profits Tax (11).

Being deceased does not exclude you from filing. If deceased, remit whatever is left over as Estate Tax (12).

Send this form along with your money in a self stamped envelope to the IRS. That is unless you are a Congressman. Then you can mail it for free.

Living lessons

By
John Marshall
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0
john marshal

Mid-afternoon a couple of weeks ago in Salina and there it was on Debold Street, westbound and waiting at the light on 9th ‒ a pale blue GTO convertible, top down and spotless, showing cream leather upholstery. A flawless mid-60s retro that shaved years off the man ‒ gray crew cut, white T-shirt ‒ at the wheel.

A car like that gets a look.

Dozens like that one are expected to catch a lot of eyes on Saturday at the 24th annual Smoky Valley Classic Car Show at Lindsborg’s Swensson Park. The show has become legendary among car buffs, a magnet for authentic beauty that each year draws more than a hundred vehicles and streams of admirers.

“And they love it because of the shade,” said Ken Swisher, a car guru who has been involved with the show since its earliest days. The park’s grassy landscape, its gardens and high old trees give relief from the heat of an August day.

The Car Show is a memory siren for the older generation and a learning experience for the curious, a place of storied times. Scores of shiny vehicles, most of them cars, will seem in better shape than they were decades ago fresh on a showroom floor.

The most ardent fans at the show may seem akin to the cars they come to admire ‒ rebuilt with their own new shocks, struts, carburetors, transmissions, even electronics. In the crowd are many new knees, hips, shoulders, pace makers and valve jobs, among other restorations.

The show brings a comingling of flesh and machinery from a time when vehicles were steel and their paint, renewed by masters, holds that magnificent sheen particular only to a body of steel.

The Park will throb again with the lavish music of unadorned times, of the luster of doo-wop and Motown. The music is an anthem, an off-ramp to reminiscence. The old days and simpler times are not coming back, but they hold lessons of the past and the car show offers a ride.

Some vehicles ‒ ’30s and ’40s coupes and sedans ‒ are from a time when the best highways in Kansas and most of America were paved and narrow two-lanes. But the vehicles got bigger and so did the roads, bringing America the Interstate highway plan (1956), a national highway network of unbroken travel. America was put in the driver’s seat of a nation on wheels. Twenty years later, 41,000 miles of Interstate ribbon had become great roadways, adding countless new lanes over another 7,000 miles.

Classics at the event have been among the first to roll their tires along the superhighways that inspired a lot of delicious vehicles: ’50s Fords and Chevys, their T-Birds and ‘Vettes, the radical fins of Chryslers and Plymouths, two-tone coats, white over turquoise, pink over black, solid lavender or lavender over black, more combinations that only the gods of metallic pastels could imagine.

*

These vehicles and their people outface today’s newer, overcrowded, noisier, more hectic world. They speak of an America less complicated, of people who were easy going, less apt to squint at strangers, not so ready to take offense or to shout and blame.

If only we could get behind that old wheel again for another driving lesson. It might show us that it’s futile to long for that simpler and smaller world of the past, but we might revive the past’s better manners, those traditional modes of politeness, the grace notes that make living in a busy, jostling world more bearable and more promising.

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