This is day 7 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.

According to the June 23, 2024 USDA/NASS Kansas Crop Progress and Condition Report, winter wheat harvested was 53%, well ahead of 17% last year and 25% for the five-year average. Winter wheat mature was 94%, well ahead of 53% last year and 65% average. Kansas winter wheat condition rated 8% very poor, 15% poor, 35% fair, 36% good and 6% excellent.

Wheat harvest is just getting started in northwest Kansas, while south central areas are wrapping things up after last week’s rains.

The central parts of Kansas — from Dodge City to Great Bend to Hutchinson and beyond — were hit hard with the drought this spring.

After missing rain during most of the growing season, John Hildebrand of Stafford reports rain finally came a couple weeks ago — after the wheat was ripe, which delayed the beginning of harvest. The Hildebrands were able to start harvest on June 13 and were in the home stretch on the afternoon of June 24.

Overall, it was a hard year, due to lack of moisture and weed pressure.

“We have weed pressure in our area,” Hildebrand said. “Thin stands and rain before harvest is the perfect recipe for weeds to come through.”

Hildebrand reports yields to be about the same as last year, which was also below average. Test weights range from 56 pounds per bushel to 59 pounds per bushel.

In Rice County, near Chase, Doug Keesling says this year’s crop is three times better than last year; however, last year’s yields were only in the single digits.

“In general, this wasn’t a perfect crop, but this was the best crop we’ve been able to harvest in the past three years,” Keesling said, “We need to be thankful for the blessings that we have, and this year we were able to get a decent harvest.” Two-thirds of his acres last year were abandoned due to drought.

Keesling farms in both Rice and Barton counties and his best-performing wheat variety, Bob Dole, yielded an average of 25 bushels per acre, had a test weight of 57 pounds per bushel and had an average of 13.5% protein this year.

Keesling started cutting his wheat on June 7 and only has a mud spot left before he wraps up. While wrapping up wheat harvest, he still has some catching up to do with his double crop sorghum and soybeans.

“We are able to plant a lot faster than we’re able to spray our double crop,” he said. “The wind storms we had last week and the strong winds lately have put a pause on us spraying; otherwise, we’d be done double-cropping.”

Mike Jordan of Beloit in Mitchell County got his combines rolling on June 14 and is about halfway done with harvest. He reported a wide range of yields that will probably result in an overall average harvest for the year. After a year of sparse rain in his area, Jordan was pleasantly surprised as he started cutting.

“The wheat is better than it looks, which is a tribute to the genetics,” Jordan said, “When we finally got the rain this spring, we got the bushels there.”

He is hoping for an average of 50 bushels per acre with conditions of fields on both ends of the spectrum. Some of the lower-yielding fields had a delayed start and did not come up until January; luckily there was some late rain that rescued those fields. He reported proteins ranging from 12 percent to 15 percent and test weights around 61 pounds per bushel. Jordan said his star variety was Westbred’s WB 4401.

Variability continues to be the theme of this year’s wheat harvest across the state. Keep watch for the next Kansas Wheat harvest report on Tuesday, June 25, 2024.

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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For audio version, visit kswheat.com.

This is day 6 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.

With widespread rains shutting down much of the hard red winter wheat areas this week, parts of eastern Kansas were still able to make progress on harvest. Today’s report focuses on soft red winter (SRW) wheat, which makes up only about five percent of Kansas’ wheat production. SRW wheat is typically lower in protein than hard red winter (HRW) wheat and tends to have higher yields.

In some areas of the state, like parts of northeast Kansas and far southeastern Kansas, SRW wheat is planted because the climate is more suitable for it than HRW, which makes up the majority of the state’s wheat acreage.

Jay Armstrong is one of those producers in northeastern Kansas who plants SRW. He was one of the few in the state who was happy with last year’s harvest, and he expects this year’s crop to be even better. After starting harvest eight days ahead of normal, he anticipates an average yield of 80 to 100 bushels per acre, a little above average for his operation. He did apply fungicide to his wheat crop, noting if he had not sprayed, he would be a lot more worried about head scab this year, especially for wheat planted after corn.

“Good weather in March helped,” he said. “There’s usually too much rain that comes through our area in March, but this year, the rain stayed off.”

Armstrong is hoping the rain continues to stay away through harvest, but he reiterated that the rains can come as much as they like for the rest of the summer, particularly to benefit double-cropped soybeans. An earlier start of harvest meant he will get those soybeans in the ground sooner, adding he also cuts his wheat at 15 to 16 percent to give the double-crop extra time to flourish.

SRW grain marketing is different than for HRW. Armstrong explained he only has two months to market his SRW wheat and get it to buyers in Kansas City. He reported there is currently a 70-cent basis this year, compared to around 20-cent basis last year.

One county to the south of Armstrong, Alex Noll has high hopes for his wheat crop this year. This is his second year adding wheat into the rotation for his operation near Winchester in Jefferson County, which he said has worked out in his favor.

SRW wheat is a good fit for his location in the state compared to HRW with more resiliency for the local climate and environment. Noll expects to average more than 100 bushels per acre with fields planted to AgriMAXX 513, all of which will be delivered to the Kansas City market. He did not report much variability in fields and plans to double-crop fields to soybeans after finishing harvest.

He is new to planting wheat, so doesn’t have a baseline for a “normal” year, but he is expected to apply the management lessons he has learned from growing corn and adapting them to a new crop.

“I find it easier to learn something if you have no previous knowledge about it,” Noll said. “It makes me more open-minded to learn and try something new, compared to something I have done before, where I can get attached to those ways and may be more hesitant to change it.”

The other dominant geography for SRW wheat in Kansas is in the southeastern corner of the state. Along the border with Missouri, harvest in Crawford County started around June 7, according to Russ Smith, general manager of the McCune location of CoMark Equity. He reported the location has taken in close to 500,000 bushels of SRW wheat. He anticipates growers will finish up in the next week and the elevator will have between 600,000 and 700,000 bushels in the bin.

Test weights are averaging 58 to 60 pounds per bushel with yields above 100 bushels per acre. Early on, the elevator detected traces of fusarium head blight (FHB).

“Quality doesn’t seem to be as good as last year’s exceptional Kansas SRW crop,” Smith said. “We got so much rain in our area during grain fill, the wheat really took a toll during that critical point of growth.”

Two counties west and on the border with Oklahoma, Richard Felts farms near Coffeyville and Liberty in Montgomery County. Rains also hit hard there, but he said his SRW crop has been resilient and able to withstand hail that accompanied the moisture.

Felts reported the wheat came on fast early in the growing season but did not maintain that rapid pace as it matured like he thought it would. He double top-dressed his wheat in February and feels strongly about this year’s return on investment for applying fungicide. He expects average yields will fall between 75 and 106 bushels per acre with average test weights of 57 to 58 pounds per bushel.

“We seemed to hit things at the right times this year,” Felts said. “The window was short, but we got things to fall in place in our favor.”

Felts double-crops all of his wheat back to soybeans, noting a new soybean crushing plant in the area will add incentives for even more planted acres for the fall crop, Felts said he understands the importance of keeping wheat in his rotation, particularly the additional conservation benefits of planting wheat like anchoring critical topsoil.

“It’s an excellent crop to conserve the soil and land, while also having economic incentives, but also hold the soil in place in the wintertime,” he said.

Strong breezy weather with a return to warmer temperatures is drying up the fields that received rainfall earlier in this week. While appreciating a short break in the summertime sprint, Kansas producers are anxious to get back in the combine cab and continue cutting this year’s wheat crop. Watch for the official crop progress report and updates from the field in the next edition of the Kansas wheat harvest report, scheduled for Monday, June 24.

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

For audio version, visit kswheat.com.

Kansas State University researchers and representatives of Kansas Wheat have published updated findings on the value of feeding wheat to pigs.

What they’ve found is good news for swine producers and wheat growers.

“Our data collected from 2014 to 2020 suggests that wheat’s mean energy content is 99% and 98% of corn for digestible energy and metabolizable energy, respectively” said Joel DeRouchey, a swine specialist for K-State Research and Extension.

Bottom line: Wheat can be used at a similar rate as corn in those areas where wheat is available, without a major decrease in the diet energy density.

“The use of wheat co-products for the milling industry is a common practice in feeding livestock,” DeRouchey said. “For wheat, there are many different classifications of co-products, such as wheat middlings, wheat millrun, wheat shorts and wheat red dog.”

K-State formed a partnership with Kansas Wheat to update what is known about the nutritional value of wheat and wheat co-products.

“Wheat milling co-products – including bran, middlings and shorts – provide good nutritional value,” said Aaron Harries, the vice president of research and operations for Kansas Wheat. “In particular, those products have high phosphorus content, which results in less supplemental phosphorus in the diet, and reduced costs for the producer.”

The two organizations have published the updated research in three fact sheets now available online from Kansas State University. The three publications are:

Wheat Nutritional Properties.
Co-product Nutritional Properties.
Off-quality utilization.

According to DeRouchey, key findings in the fact sheets include:

Wheat contains higher levels of crude protein and amino acids compared to other cereal grains. “This allows for less soybean meal inclusion in the diet.
Wheat’s standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids is similar to corn, but greater than barley and sorghum,” DeRouchey said.
The phosphorus content of wheat is 0.27%, and has very high digestible phosphorus because it contains intrinsic phytase.
Pelleted wheat diets have been found to have significantly greater pellet durability index, as much as 33.1% compared to corn-based diets. “Even if wheat is not used as the main cereal grain (in a swine diet), it can be incorporated into diets as a pelleting aid,” DeRouchey said.

Harries notes that the updated findings on feeding wheat to swine “provides valuable new information for swine feeders.”

“It allows farmers to consider swine feeding as an alternative marketplace for their wheat,” he said.

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Written by Pat Melgares, K-State Research and Extension news service

This is day 5 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.

Kansas wheat producers can’t seem to catch a break in the weather, kicking up swirling, dust clouds as they raced to cut wheat ahead of heavy thunderstorms and hail on Tuesday, June 18. Harvest is now progressing into areas of south central Kansas that missed the rains that have benefited producers in other parts of the state — a reminder that not all are feeling a sense of recovery this season.

Moisture in the air had combines running slower on Tuesday near Larned, but the day before the Pawnee County Coop Association took in about 100,000 bushels, according to Kim Barnes, interim general manager. This year’s wheat crop suffered — hit by drought and Wheat Streak Mosaic Virus. As a result, yields are down at 15 to 40 bushels per acre, test weights are averaging 56 pounds per bushel and quality is lacking.

This is his 55th wheat harvest and Barnes said he has seen it all. This harvest is the fourth in a row to suffer from prolonged drought conditions — not breaking out of drought status for more than three days in a row for all that time.

“Out of the 55 years, this is the next to the lowest year,” he said. “I’ve never seen production this bad than the last couple of years.”

Last year, the coop took in 450,000 bushels, and as of Monday, June 17, Barnes reported the company has only taken in 341,000 bushels so far. While it’s on track to be more than last year, it’s a far cry from the coop’s high of 4 million bushels in 2016.

“We were hoping that we would see a million bushels this year, but now we’re just hoping we had more than last year,” he said.

Adding insult to injury, the wheat market has lost $1 per bushel compared to two or three weeks ago and early export demand was gobbled up by the Texas wheat crop. Even after starting 10 days early, Barnes noted producers will be cutting until the end of June, especially those who have to take extra time to control aggressive cinch bugs driven out of harvest fields into newly planted milo fields.

In eastern Kansas, Jesse Muller is having more harvest luck with a better crop in Montgomery County compared to the last few years. The operation planted solely WestBred varieties this year and Muller reported yields are averaging 40 to 70 bushels per acre with test weights averaging 62 pounds per bushel. He takes all of his wheat to the elevator in Liberty, which takes both hard and soft wheat.

“Compared to last year, everyone is seeing better than expected yields with quality staying steady,” Muller said. “Part of it comes from having a drier fall and a wet spring.”

For the entire county, Muller noted his neighbors have had some loss from both some freeze damage over the winter and hail damage from storms that rolled in the first part of June.

Harvest came later than anticipated, not due to a delay in ripening, but due to rains that kept them out of the fields. With the added moisture, Muller and his neighbors are fighting more weeds the later they stay in the fields.

Muller went through the Kansas Wheat Leadership Program in 2023, which gave him appreciation of the time it takes to get wheat genetics to the farmers’ fields.

“It’s crazy to think about the time it takes from an initial cross to getting planted in farmers’ fields and harvested,” Muller said. “The leadership program opened my eyes to everything within the industry that I can take home and can put into perspective on my operation and be thankful for what they are doing up there.”

Harvest is about halfway complete for Knopf Farms near Gypsum in Saline County after starting cutting on June 11. While there wasn’t much spring moisture, yields are better than expected, according to Justin Knopf, who said the cool, nighttime temperatures in May helped offset that lack of rainfall.

Yields are averaging 45 to 60 bushels per acre, but are wide-ranging from the 30s to 80s, depending on moisture and hail damage. He reported they are seeing good grain quality with test weights ranging from 59 to 62 pounds per bushel, but decreasing as harvest progresses. Excellent varieties include KS Providence, SY Monument and Rock Star.

While the farm will see “typical” yield averages, this is far from an average year with far more variability, due to the lack of spring rains, hail damage, freeze impacts and variety maturity. Knopf noted he was glad he applied fungicide at flag leaf because it was holding the stripe rust at bay.

Wheat harvest also started about 10 days early in McPherson County, where grower Derek Sawyer spoke with Slade Wiley with the Kansas Ag Network from the field on Tuesday, June 18. It could have been earlier, but the first good rain since January hit right when harvest should have started.

“It’s kind of ironic that we’re fighting mud when the yields are really depressed by drought,” Sawyer told the broadcaster. “But that’s the way it goes here.”

Now that he’s in the combine cab, Sawyer expects to finish up harvest by the end of the week — if there are no more rain delays. Overall, the crop appears to be of good quality with test weights hanging in about 60 pounds per bushel.

“The quality of the crop looks excellent; the yields are better than we expected,” he noted. “It’s a nice surprise to get out here and get some wheat rolling in the bin that we didn’t expect.”

Breaking down the harvest results further, however, reveals a spotty, variable crop within individual fields. Sawyer noted that going from 60-bushel wheat down to 10-bushel wheat within a single step, for no obvious rhyme or reason, is giving combine operators extra headaches as they work to set their machines and keep their headers clean.

Sawyer added that he’s reflecting on the 150th anniversary of the arrival of Turkey Red wheat in Kansas — noting that there’s no way the wheat of yesterday would have endured and made this year’s yields without the aid of the wheat breeding pipeline improving on Turkey Red’s foundation.

“You realize in years like this the impact of the research and the improvements we have done year after year,” he said. “There needs to be a lot of credit for the scientists and the breeders of wheat in Kansas because this year’s weather conditions shouldn’t have given us the yield that we’re getting.”

Rain delays will keep most of the state out of the field for the next couple of days. Stay tuned for a special edition of the Kansas Wheat harvest report focused on soft wheat production on Thursday.

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