Is the Wheat Crop Toast? A Wheat Update

The view looks a little "crusty." No ... not the farmer. The wheat looks a little crusty and brown as you gaze across the horizon. Wheat continues its journey toward bread for grocery store shelves this spring. As the days warm from a few frosty mornings earlier this month, more time must pass before farmers learn how much of their crop is already "toast."

Yes, the outer leaves are discolored.

But while freezing temperatures have left a brownish cast across some of the wheat, my resident optimist believes that the growing point for our major crop was far enough down that the damage is minimal in our fields.

When he burrowed down into the plant, he found still-green new shoots emerging. (It's near his thumbs in the photo below.)

When he felt the stalk for the growing point, it was still halfway down the stalk (about where he thumb is positioned).

According to Romulo Lollato, Kansas State University Extension wheat and forage specialist, the extent of damage varies based on the wheat variety, planting date and field conditions.

Kansas Wheat released this chart with their evaluation of damage. (Click on the graphic to make it bigger and make it readable.) According to their map, we are in a moderately high area of freeze damage. As always, the final analysis will come from the scale tickets at harvest.

This year, the Wheat Quality Council has canceled its Hard Winter Wheat Tour because of concerns over the potential spread of Covid-19. The tour was supposed to take place May 4 to 6. Traditionally, the Wheat Quality Council tour has brought 100 people from large cities from the U.S. and even beyond to the state. Tour participants would travel for three days and stop along the way to take measurements and evaluate wheat condition. The tour usually includes stops at farms, filling up at gas stations, eating at rural cafes and staying at small-town motels. The Wheat Tour typically concludes with a forecast for the projected harvest, based on the data collected along the way. The statewide tour had the potential for inadvertently spreading Covid-19, according to David Green, WQC director.

June 2019

Ultimately, we'll have to wait until the combine harvests the grain in June to get the ultimate verdict on how the April freezes - and the myriad of other variable factors - ultimately affect the amount of wheat trucked to Kansas elevators.

Rain, Rain, Come Again Another Day!

Rain, rain, go away,

Come again another day.

SAID NO KANSAS FARMER EVER AT THIS TIME OF YEAR!

Farmers much prefer:

Rain, rain, come and stay

And keep coming for another day!

It may not have the same "ring" to it, but it's accurate. 

The rain on Saturday was not the perfect atmosphere for K-State's spring football game. But it sure made two little girls happy.

The tags got removed from Kinley's new butterfly rain boots. Umbrellas were unfurled.

And Brooke was so excited to wear her new raincoat from Grandma Christy and walk through the puddles with her rain boots.

The rain made Grandpas and Grandmas happy, too ... especially those who needed some rain to give the 2018 wheat crop a fighting chance.

Last week's drought monitor put even more of the state in either extreme or exceptional drought. Two tiny corners of the state were the only areas not classified as dry. While the 0.90" of rain we received here on the Stafford/Reno County line won't put much of a dent in the extreme drought, we are thankful for what we did receive.

Before moving some pairs of cattle to pasture Monday afternoon, Randy and I stopped for a look at a wheat field.

There was some concern that freezing temperatures during the first two weekends of April could have caused damage. The first week of April not only brought the season’s first snowfall to much of Kansas, but some of the coldest weather of the year as well, with nighttime lows falling into the teens and daytime highs barely above freezing.

However, that cover of snow on April 7 helped blanket the wheat. But on April 14, there was no snow cover. 

A chart from K-State had shown there was high risk in our area for freeze damage to wheat after our sub-freezing temperatures that second weekend.

The top of the wheat plant shows some freeze damage, seen here in the brown and yellow on the leaves.

However, the Kansas wheat crop is well behind the five-year average for maturation at this time. So, the growing point wasn't too far out of the ground. Having only a small fraction of the crop as far along as jointing meant less chance of massive freeze damage as a result of those adverse events.

In the photo above, Randy uses a knife to point to the growing point - or joint.

He then used the knife to slice open the stalk at the growing point. Good news: It revealed a green head! If there had been freeze damage, it would have been more white. It looks like we dodged a bullet.

This year's Kansas winter wheat crop definitely didn't need another challenge. Kansas has had  one of the driest winters on record: Much of the state - including our farm - got virtually no moisture from early October to mid-March. So the adverse conditions had already taken a toll on harvest prospects.

The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service found only 13 percent of the crop in good or excellent condition (just 1 percent excellent) in the first week of April's Crop Progress report. A whopping 74 percent of the crop is considered fair to poor, with 13 percent very poor.

Wheat is said to have "nine lives." This will be another year when that theory is again tested. My resident optimist still says that Kansas could still have an average or close-to-average crop in many areas. We just need more timely rains and moderate temperatures during the next several weeks.

There's some rain in the forecast again today, so I'll try my modified rhyme:

Rain, rain, come and stay

And keep coming for another day!

Corn 2017: The Journey Begins

The corn seed in the middle of the photo was at the end of the row, where Randy turned. Most of the seeds end up underground, where they are supposed to be, but I still liked the photo.

God says, "Leave the miracle part to me. 

I've got the seed, the soil, the sunshine, the rain and the seasons.

I'm God, and all this miracles stuff is easy for me. 

I have reserved something very special for you 

and that is to plant the seed."

--Jim Rohn, Author & Motivational Speaker

Two weeks ago, Randy started planting corn. He finished the last field on Friday, right before we got 2.20 inches of rain over the weekend. 

 

On the day I took the photos, it was one of those times when the blue sky was dusted with cotton-candy wisps of clouds, which beautifully offset the brown earth.

I wasn't Randy's only audience. Our cows in a catty-corner pasture came to watch the proceedings. I'm always amused by cow's curiosity. Thankfully, they didn't get any closer to the action.

Last Friday, we were in the corn field again. At the field where he had first planted, the green corn sprouts lined up like soldiers down rows of brown earth.

It looks like a good stand.

This year, we planted 310 acres of corn, a little more than last year. I'm sure that seems like small potatoes - or small sprouts - to anybody who has circles of corn. Since we are an all dryland farm, wheat remains our primary crop.

Randy says these photos make the corn look bigger than it is. Yes, it does, but I liked it anyway.

However, corn was a primary crop in this area when it was settled. The 6th Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture of 1888 reported that corn was the main crop for Stafford County, covering 48,030 acres. Oats were grown on 10,849 acres, while the winter wheat crop totaled 8,717 acres. Pasture ground was tallied at 13,446 acres. (Information taken from Stafford County History: 1870-1990.)

 

To give the corn a boost right from the start, Randy applies a nitrogen fertilizer to promote germination and early growth.

He also had the co-op spray a combination of herbicide and fertilizer. The herbicide will help control broadleaf weeds and some grasses, and the fertilizer was applied at the rate indicated by soil testing, so it varied from location to location.

 

Our planter was set at 18,800 corn seeds per acre. Each $200 bag has 80,000 seeds and plants 4.3 acres. By comparison, one bag of certified wheat seed costs $15 and plants about half an acre. A bag of milo seed costs $119 and plants 14 acres.

At another field, Randy did a little digging to uncover the seeds. They had sprouted, but they hadn't yet emerged through the soil. 

And now we'll leave the miracle part to God

Thermometer Calisthenics: A Wheat Report

A Time to Think

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, 
or sailed to an uncharted land,
or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. 
–Helen Keller, author and lecturer
From a Guideposts email devotional

Some people see snow and freezing temperatures. Randy sees moisture and insulation. He is officially an optimist, even as the thermometer plays its version of calisthenics with its unpredictable ups and downs. 

On Easter morning, we got more snow than we'd had all winter. However, that isn't saying much. I bought some new snow boots last fall, and I didn't even take the tags off. We probably had an inch or two of snow that blanketed the ground on Easter morning.

It also covered the wheat fields. It was the thermometer's second dip into the 20s during the past couple of weeks. The first time, there was no snow cover on the ground. During this latest foray into the 20s, the snow helped insulate the wheat crop.

Snow on wheat isn't usually a problem, especially during the winter. Snow means moisture and moisture is a good thing. But we had already had temperatures that were more summer-like than spring-like, flirting with the high 80s, so the wheat was well on its way out of its winter "sleep" or dormancy.

This week, Randy has checked to see if there is freeze damage in our fields. He carefully broke apart the stem to reveal the "innards." In our fields, the wheat plants still appeared green and growing, inside and out.

A fellow Kansas Wheat board member who lives in Sumner County, found some freeze damage in his crop. Because his fields were a little further south, the wheat was a little further along, making it more susceptible to damage from the freeze.

For now, my resident optimist thinks our wheat continues to look pretty good, though it definitely needs some additional moisture. The unrelenting Kansas wind has dried out fields. A nice, gentle springtime rain would be just what the farmer ordered. And we'll take it without severe weather like hail and tornadoes, thank you! We don't ask for much, right?

My Crystal Ball Is Cloudy

There are dozens of sunrises and sunsets between now and Wheat Harvest 2015. Time will tell what kind of crop we'll harvest this coming June.

Last week, before the latest round of winter weather came through the area, some meteorologists predicted that a third of the nation's wheat belt would be affected by winterkill caused by sub-zero temperatures and wind chills.

Most of the Kansas crop was thought to avoid the damage. Winterkill was anticipated in eastern Nebraska, southwestern Iowa, northern and eastern Missouri, south central Illinois, southern Indiana and southern Ohio.

Adequate moisture this fall helped establish a good root system for our crop here in South Central Kansas.

We had snow cover on most of our wheat, which helps insulate it somewhat from the sub-zero temperatures.

The tip ends of the plant always show some damage from freeze burn, but as long as the main part of the plant has ample moisture below the surface, the wheat isn't damaged by the surface "burn."

The National Agriculture Statistics Service reports that 49 percent of Kansas wheat is now in good to excellent condition, with 42 percent fair and 9 percent in poor to very poor condition.

My personal crop adviser doesn't think our crop was hurt with the temperatures. He is, if you'll recall, one of the most optimistic people I know.

Two years ago, we had several episodes of freezing rain during April and figured the wheat crop was lost. Instead, Harvest 2013 was the best wheat we'd ever harvested. For our 2014 wheat crop, a dry fall, winter and spring negatively impacted our yields.

My crystal ball is a little cloudy right now. We'll see how things add up when the trucks cross the co-op scales next June.

S'no'w Joke: It's Cold!

Pull up that snow blanket and hunker down.

While I'd much rather turn my electric blanket up a notch as the thermometer plummeted to 8 below zero yesterday morning, I guess the winter wheat has to make due with a frosty white blanket of snow.

As with most extreme weather episodes, time will tell whether the sub-zero temperatures will impact the 2014 wheat crop.

My crop expert is cautiously optimistic. Then again, he's always optimistic. (That's a wonderful trait in a husband, by the way.)

Other experts are hedging their opinions a bit more. Don Keeney, agricultural meteorologist for a commodity risk firm, MDA Weather Services, told the Associated Press that freeze damage is likely to hit about 15 to 20 percent of the Plains wheat belt, which includes Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, northern Texas and eastern Colorado. According to Keeney, a couple of inches of snow are sufficient to protect winter wheat when temperatures dip as low as minus 4 degrees. But wheat needs at least 4 inches of snow cover to protect it when temperatures get much colder.

However, predictions about what might happen are about as valuable as those forecasts of spring we get from Punxsutawney Phil each February. Who would have thought that our 2013 wheat crop would survive April freezes and produce the best crop we've ever had?

As wise farmers are fond of saying, "There's a lot of time between now and harvest."

Miracles Do Happen: Harvest 2013

Before the reward, there must be labor. 

You plant before you harvest. 

You sow in tears before you reap joy.

Artist Ralph Ransom

Last September, I found a quote in The Hutchinson News and superimposed it over a photo of our newly drilled wheat field:

The summer of 2012 was the driest since 1936. At one point, three-quarters of the land area in the 48 contiguous states was experiencing drought conditions. I'd never heard the old farmers' adage before, and I sure didn't believe it.

For us, the adage came true. It is Randy's best harvest year ever, and he's been farming since the summer of 1972. Our overall yield average this year was 52.7 bushels per acre. Our highest yielding field was 76 bushels per acre, and our lowest was 32 bushels per acre (on ground that is primarily used for hunting by the landlord). Randy planted two wheat varieties this year: Everest and Stout. They both yielded well and exceeded the 60-pound-a-bushel test weight for quality wheat. But at some locations, the Stout variety laid over in the field, which made for slower cutting.
Our previous record harvest was 2008, when the average was 50.6 bushels per acre.

The yields and quality were miraculous when you consider the obstacles the crop faced during its 9-month life cycle. We planted in dust. The wheat miraculously came up. But even then, the obstacles weren't over. It has needed the proverbial nine lives to get it from planting to harvest. After an unseasonable hail/ice/sleet/rain storm on April 9,  I wrote:

We walked across the road to the wheat field, and there was more crunching than a roomful of celery-and-carrot-munching dieters as our boots broke the surface of the ice that encased each tender green plant.

Then, it happened again on April 23, after springtime had "officially" arrived (on the calendar anyway) and after the frost-free date for our area. Mother Nature didn't get the memo:

After another shot of freezing weather, our 2013 wheat crop is on its fourth or fifth life - at least. It kind of looked like a slushy machine had erupted in the wheat fields again on Tuesday morning. 

May, however, brought some unseasonably cool weather and rain showers at the right time. It turned out to be ideal weather for filling wheat heads. Contrast this year's mild temperatures with last year, when we had already had several 100-degree days in May, and we began cutting wheat on May 26 and finished on June 9, the earliest ever. (Our July 6, 2013, finish date this year was almost a full month later than last year.)

I know our fellow wheat farmers to the west were not so fortunate. For them, the adage was just a tired old saying. Around here, we still need more rain to officially "bust" the drought, but they desperately need moisture. Many of them had to abandon their wheat crops. Others had paltry yields, but they cut it anyway, trying to get seed wheat for next year.

 

The end of Wheat Harvest 2013 was a little anticlimactic around here, since we weren't actually cutting it ourselves. The custom cutters hauled the last load of our wheat to Stafford on Saturday, but one of our own trucks is already in the shed, and the combine is still in the repair shop in Hutchinson. And the guys have moved on to hay harvest and disking.

But we are extremely thankful for the harvest. I guess wheat is kind of like an old farmer: It often responds in the face of adversity and trials.