Scout's Honor

Well, the sky was really pretty. That's the most positive thing I can say about The County Line's mini version of the the Wheat Quality Council 2014 Hard Winter Wheat Tour. Since Randy and I didn't take part in the official annual wheat tour, we attempted our own version after delivering the last load of cows and calves to the Ninnescah Pasture. 

 

Randy counted the tillers on the wheat plants in a foot-wide section of a wheat field then used a yield estimate formula developed by Kansas State University. Our projected yield for Wheat Harvest 2014 is 27 bushels per acre.

The news wasn't much better from the official tour, which wrapped up yesterday. Crop scouts estimated production for the Kansas crop at 260.6 million bushels, the lowest tour estimate since 1996. The average yield, calculated from 587 stops, was 33.2 bushels per acre. Last year, we had our best wheat crop ever. It averaged 52.7 bushels per acre, despite planting into dust and then having two  late April mornings when it appeared a slushy machine had exploded onto our wheat fields. 

Last year, the tour estimated Kansas wheat production would average 41.1 bushels per acre, close to the final USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service's final yield for Kansas of 38 bushels per acre. All the yield estimates from the tour assume decent moisture and average temperature prospects from now until harvest.

Moisture - or the lack thereof - continues to be one of Kansas farmers' greatest concerns. A newly-released drought outlook chart from the U.S. National Weather Service doesn't offer a lot of encouragement, with our part of the state in the "drought persists or intensifies" section through the end of this month.

In its weekly report, Kansas Agricultural Statistics has winter wheat rated 13 percent very poor, 24 poor, 42 fair, 20 good, and 1 percent excellent.

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Thanks to Kansas Wheat for information from the Wheat Quality Tour.