Contact: Marsha Boswell, [email protected]

This Hard White Wheat Special Edition of the Kansas Wheat Harvest Reports is brought to you by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Kansas Grain and Feed Association and the Kansas Cooperative Council.

Hard white (HW) winter wheat varieties continue to be popular among some western Kansas farmers for their high yields, disease resistance and quality. The biggest challenge for hard white is market liquidity and continuity of trade into the marketplace. Kansas Wheat continues to work with the grain handling industry and Federal Grain Inspection Service to revise the grain standards to facilitate the movement of hard white wheat in domestic and international markets and lessen the burden on grain handlers. For additional information on Kansas Wheat’s comments submitted to FGIS, visit https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/10/12/2022-22113/united-states-standards-for-wheat.

Hard white winter wheat is very similar to hard red winter (HRW) wheat apart from a gene impacting the color of the outer bran coat. It can be used for stand-alone whole wheat products with a lighter color or can be used interchangeably by mills with hard red winter, depending on protein and extraction needs.

Hard white wheat had been growing in export demand, primarily to Nigeria out of the Texas Gulf, but the past two years of drought-stricken production shortfalls have impacted that business for Kansas farmers.

Joe is the top seeded variety in west central Kansas, making up 14.3 percent of planted acres. Hard white wheat varieties also make up 11.4 percent of acres in southwest Kansas. Overall, hard white wheat was seeded on 4.7 percent of Kansas’ 8.1 million acres, accounting for 380,700 acres seeded to hard white wheat in the fall of 2022. In these areas, the multi-year drought caused many seeded acres to be abandoned, including an estimated 60% of Kansas’ dryland hard white wheat acres.

In addition to Kansas, hard white wheat is also grown in Colorado, Nebraska and California. The U.S. Wheat Associates Hard White Wheat Committee estimates U.S. total hard white wheat production to be just over 17 million bushels this year.

Overall, the quality of this year’s hard white wheat crop is excellent. While southwest Kansas had to abandon many acres, hard white wheat production increased in areas to the north.

Eric Sperber from Cornerstone Ag in Colby says they’ve taken in four times the hard white wheat they got last year. At this point, hard white is making up about 40 percent of their bushels.

“It’s a lot more than I was anticipating,” said Sperber. “It has been a number of years since we dumped this much white wheat.”

Overall, the quality of this year’s hard white wheat in the Colby area is comparable with the hard red winter, with test weights ranging from 57 to 60 pounds per bushel, with the average ending up on the lower end with the delayed harvest. Earlier-harvested wheat had higher test weights, but they’ve decreased after last week’s rain. Proteins consistently averaged 12.5 percent.

Sperber says Cornerstone is trying to find demand in the market for hard white, as there is currently no international demand. U.S. wheat is priced out of the market. Even if hard white wheat was competitive, other classes are higher priced than international competitors’ prices, so loading a vessel to Nigeria with multiple classes is not an option.

He reports that one large producer in the area was seeing better than 80 bushels per acre yields on hard white variety Joe, from the Kansas Wheat Alliance. The dryland field was planted after corn. Average yields in the area on all hard wheat ranged from 25 bushels per acre on hail-damaged wheat to 70 bushels per acre.

Another producer used Joe as a wheat streak mosaic virus deterrent by planting it around the edges of his hard red winter wheat field. Instead of harvesting the two classes separately, he harvested them together, thinking there wouldn’t be much hard white in the load. Unfortunately, Cornerstone had to classify this as wheat of other classes, resulting in a lower price than either HRW or HW alone. Even with their genetic and end use similarities, it is still important for farmers and grain handlers to keep it segregated to avoid grain grading issues.

Rick Horton of Leoti reports that the newest hard white wheat variety, KS Big Bow, is outyielding its predecessor, Joe, by four to five bushels per acre on his farm in west central Kansas. KS Big Bow was released by Kansas State University in 2022, is marketed by Kansas Wheat Alliance, and will be available to farmers this fall.

Horton says KS Big Bow has the potential to outyield Joe even more, as it was planted with a low population on his farm due to limited seed availability last fall. He says it could be up to 15 bushels per acre above Joe’s yield.

In addition, Horton says KS Big Bow is a stronger plant with better standability and better grain quality, calling it a “better version of Joe.”

Protein was averaging 13.3%, about one percent higher than Joe, and test weights remained at 60 pounds per bushel, even after multiple rains on it. He started to see a little bit of sprout damage on Joe after the rains, but none on KS Big Bow. The harvestability was good, with no shatter.

Compared to Joe, KS Big Bow has improved yield, drought tolerance, straw strength, sprouting tolerance and better baking quality. KS Big Bow also has wheat streak mosaic virus resistance, stripe and stem rust resistance similar to Joe.

The Horton family started harvest on July 4, about a week later than normal, was kept out of the fields for several days due to rain, and wrapped up on July 19. They didn’t destroy many acres, but kept some of the fields that should have been destroyed for seed. Wheat barely came up in the fall, but a .20 to .30 inch rain after planting helped it emerge. While this has been a late harvest because of cool temperatures, Horton says this year’s crop had the “best finishing weather.”

Stewart Whitham, also from Wichita County, grows 100% hard white wheat varieties: two-thirds of his wheat acres were planted to KWA’s Joe and the other third are PlainsGold’s Breck this year. His wheat is half dryland and half irrigated.

He reports that by May, half of their wheat had been abandoned, due to the drought it suffered over the winter. Even with decent stands in the fall, the wheat did not grow after its initial fall tillering.

Whitham started test cutting on July 4, but a storm came in that evening and kept him from starting harvest until July 9.

With these storms have come hail, which has destroyed another 20 percent of Whitham’s wheat crop.

While his harvestable acres have been cut back to only 30 percent of what was planted last fall, Whitham is seeing good quality characteristics for this year’s hard white wheat crop. Test weights have been hanging in there, even after recent rains, at 59 to 60 pounds per bushel. Protein levels are strong, and yields are about two thirds of what he would typically expect. Whitham has seen no sprout damage in his fields as of yet, a strong testament to recent genetic improvements in hard white wheat varieties. Sprout damage would have been eminent in older hard white wheat varieties.

Both varieties have been good for Whitham, and he plans to grow them again next year. He also plans to add the newest hard white wheat variety from Kansas Wheat Alliance, KS Big Bow. His acres will remain about the same this fall. He said Breck has a little better standability than Joe, but they were both good, healthy plants with no disease pressure.

All Whitham’s hard white wheat is stored on his farm and is marketed directly to flour mills or grain companies as is warranted by demand. Unfortunately, Whitham says demand is currently stagnant across the world and it is tough to create a marketing plan with current market volatility. He emphasized the need to increase both international and domestic demand when it comes to hard white wheat.

As with others in the area, Whitham is fighting weed pressure and weather events to get his harvest wrapped up.

Ron Suppes who farms in Lane County has all hard white wheat, namely two Kansas Wheat Alliance varieties, Joe and KS Silverado.

He had to destroy 32 percent of his planted acres due to the drought. The remaining acres are averaging about 20 bushels per acre. He noted that Joe weathered the drought better than KS Silverado. Average test weights for his farm are 58 to 58.5 pounds per bushel, and protein is averaging 15 percent.

Suppes began wheat harvest on July 17, nearly a month later than his normal start date of June 20. Scattered rain events and humidity kept the wheat from drying down until mid-July. But Suppes noted that unlike other areas in the state that have received a year’s worth of moisture in the last two months, his area has only received 5 to 14 inches from one end of the farm to another, and the soil profile remains short.

He’s fighting weed pressure from kochia as well as noxious weeds like bindweed. He has given up on producing any seed wheat this year.

“This has been an exceptional year, and I don’t mean good,” Suppes said, noting that it is costing more to harvest the wheat than it is worth. “We have to keep wheat in our rotation,” he said.

Suppes markets his hard white wheat to mills in Kansas, South Dakota and North Carolina.

U.S. Wheat Associates produces an annual Crop Quality Report that includes grade, flour and end-product data for all six U.S. wheat classes. The 2023 Annual Wheat Quality Report will be available at uswheat.org.

The 2023 Harvest Report is 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 on Twitter, use #wheatharvest23. Tag us at @kansaswheat on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share your harvest story and photos.

###

Written by Marsha Boswell, VP of Communications

Contact: Marsha Boswell, [email protected]

For audio file, please visit kswheat.com.

This is day 15 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.

Everyone in the wheat supply chain is feeling the drag of a long and difficult harvest season. Harvest is still only 87 percent complete, well behind 100 percent last year and the five-year average of 98 percent, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) crop progress report for the week ending July 23, 2023.

Producers generally like to wrap up harvest by the Fourth of July across the draw area for Garden City Co-op, but general manager Jeff Boyd noted there are a number of farmers still cutting and hauling in grain. A big storm that dropped three to five inches of rain and hail Thursday, July 20, further delayed those final fields, but with triple-digit temperatures this week, most producers should be able to finish up.

“That’s been the story of this harvest and why we still have folks out there with acres to cut,” Boyd said. “I don’t remember one being this late.”

At the beginning of wheat harvest in Finney County and the surrounding area, test weights were good at 60 to 61 pounds per bushel but are now averaging just under 59 pounds per bushel due to continued rain. Moisture has stayed steady at 12 percent. Proteins are averaging in the 12 percent range.

Yields are highly variable with a lot of abandoned acres with some fields not even germinating until January and February. Boyd reported they expected a big difference between planted and harvested acres, but the cooperative will take in about half the bushels of a 10-year average crop, which is better than anyone expected in the spring.

Wheat producers planted into dust last fall and are now harvesting in the mud, having received a year’s worth of rain since April – some areas up to 15 inches. Boyd noted there is still a moisture deficiency to make up, despite the continued summer showers, which currently good-looking fall crops will need to get to harvest.

Despite the seemingly constant rain delays and ever-increasing weed pressure, wheat farmers like Gary Millershaski in Lakin are stubborn and determined to do whatever it takes to finish cutting the fields left standing. On Monday, July 24, Millershaski was cutting wheat that should have been cut a month ago, but was set back by finally getting rain, mud, then more rain, then weeds, then having to spray fields and wait for residual periods to expire, then more rain. His friends in Oregon and Montana are already cutting their winter wheat, which is always on a different harvest schedule than his Kansas farm.

“I’m not mad, I’m frustrated,” he said. “It has been a mess.”

The entire growing season for Millershaski has been a battle. Before May 15, his acres only had received six to eight inches of moisture for the last year and a half. He planted wheat at the end of September and only had 30 to 40 percent emergence due to the drought. Where the wheat did come up after a small snow in January or rain in May, a lot did not produce kernels. After crop insurance agents adjusted those poor acres anywhere from zero to 2.5 bushels per acre, he destroyed all but 15 percent of his planted acres.

There in the southern half of Kearny County, he estimated up to 90 percent of wheat acres were abandoned. In comparison, the northern half of the county saw unbelievable yields if producers were fortunate enough to get the wheat to come up. Those yields were boosted by a complete turn in the weather after May 15. Since that time, Millershaski reported receiving 16 to 17 inches of rain.

That rain helped fill heads, even if it brought with it troublesome weeds. Millershaski reported test weights started as high as 61.7 pounds per bushel and protein should be higher than average due to the prior drought conditions. If he averages 25 bushels an acre on the fields he has left, he said he will be tickled to death.

As the rain has continued falling, test weights have dropped down to 56 or 57 pounds per bushel, and elevators are now sending samples of nearly every load to the Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) to check for potential damage. As a result, it can take up to three days for the producer to know their dockage levels, which Millershaski said is frustrating, but a necessary part of what the cooperatives need to do to sustain local operations.

“We’re back to cutting again,” Millershaski said. “With any luck, I’ll wrap it up tomorrow.”

Millershaski turned 60 years old this year. Of all his harvests, he has never cut this late and the poor year ranks at the very bottom. Despite that struggle, he and his two sons are already on the list for the varieties they selected to plant this fall – refusing to let this year be their last.

“We’re planning for next year,” he said. “If we were throwing in the towel, we wouldn’t be cutting this crap right now.”

“Nobody likes to quit a failure. I’ll be danged if I’m going to quit on a bad year. I may retire after the year of the home-run-over-the-fence yields, but I don’t see how I could quit.”

Crop insurance helps provide a bridge from this bad year to a hopefully better harvest next year, but Millershaski was quick to point out that not many could average out their yearly wages for the past 15 years, take 60 to 70 percent of that and make that work for their budgets.

“If it weren’t for crop insurance, there would be a lot of people that would not be here next year,” Millershaski said.

His son Kyler is off the combine and back in Washington, DC, this week, visiting with Congressional leaders about the importance of programs like crop insurance to helping farmers like themselves persist through bad years like this one. Millershaski said he’s fortunate to have two sons that didn’t want to do anything but farm and are home working as the next generation in the operation.

“This is our passion,” he said, noting he wished he could explain the good smell of a shovel full of good dirt in the spring or the soothing feel of ripe wheat to the touch. “This is what we do.”

The 2023 Harvest Report is 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 on Twitter, use #wheatharvest23. Tag us at @kansaswheat on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to share your harvest story and photos.

###

Written by Julia Debes for Kansas Wheat