Not the Year to be a Wheat Farmer!

2023 was not the year to be a wheat farmer.

The old timers always say that wheat has nine lives. However, this year, the first eight of those lives were spent like a parched and thirsty traveler looking for an oasis in Death Valley. By the time we started getting some rain in late May and June, the crop was already on life support.

I saved a Kansas drought monitor map at the end of April. It showed how much of Kansas was in exceptional or extreme drought. It wasn't the first or last time for that red to "bleed" over much of the state.

 

Usually, there is great anticipation and excitement as wheat harvest arrives. This year, there was no sense of urgency. People in our area still aren't done, but intermittent showers have made it hard to get over the ground.

Painting filter on photograph

As I mentioned before, Tye and Todd (who farm our ground) hire custom cutters rather than having their own combine. Frederick Harvesting from Alden arrived with four combines on June 28. By late the next day, they had cut the majority of our acres.

Since I began blogging in 2010, I've had a handy record of finish dates for our wheat harvest. They've been all over the board in the past 14 years:

2010: June 25

2011: June 20

2012: June 9 (an anomaly)

2013: July 6

2014: July 7

2015: July 1

2016: July 13

2017: June 28

2018: June 29

2019: July 22

2020: July 7

2021: July 12

2022: June 28

2023: June 29(four custom machines make it go quickly!)

 

The blog also made it easier to keep track of the average bushels per acre over our farm ground. Yield averages in the years since I've been blogging have been:

2010: 37.2 bu/acre

2011: 36.7 bu/acre

2012: 45.5 bu/acre

2013: 52 bu/acre

2014: 24.5 bu/acre

2015: 50 bu/acre

2016: 48.5 bu/acre

2017: 50.84 bu/acre

2018: 39.2 bu/acre

2019: 23.6 bu/acre

2020: 49.5 bu/acre

2021: 58 bu/acre

2022: 34 bu/acre

2023: 17.7 bu/acre

This year, the bushels per acre on our ground ranged from 4 to 32. 

There will be a lot of insurance adjusters in our area in the coming days because the poor crop was universal. Back in June, it was predicted that Kansas farmers would reap their smallest harvest in more than 60 years. For decades, Kansas has led the nation in wheat production. For the last two years, a drought has withered a lot of the crop.

While the final numbers aren't in, this year’s wheat harvest in Kansas is shaping up to be the smallest since 1957. That year, the Eisenhower administration intentionally suppressed wheat production. Last year, Kansas produced 244 million bushels of hard red winter wheat. It remains to be seen what the tally will be this year.

But, this is wheat country. Here's hoping for a better crop next year!

The Final Numbers: Wheat Harvest 2022

 

I was born during wheat harvest. A rain had taken my dad out of the harvest fields that year, so my arrival didn't even mess with getting the wheat in the bin. 

The photo above was before my recruitment as a truck driver, but I've been taking combine rides for much of my life.

However, through the years, I've had plenty of birthday celebrations right in the midst of harvest, and this year was no exception. 

Before I even had a driver's license, I was helping during harvest, moving the truck closer to the uncut wheat so that my dad didn't waste as much time driving the combine to the truck to dump wheat. This was pre-grain cart days. Or maybe it was just a ploy to get me more comfortable in the truck. At any rate, as soon as I had my learner's permit, I was trucking wheat to the Iuka Co-op.

So it's probably not surprising that one of my favorite Bible verses has something to do with wheat:

John 12: 24

²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  

 It's an "everyday" miracle in farm country, I suppose. We plant the hard kernels of wheat in the fall. 

 

These wheat kernels are "pinkish" because they were treated with insecticide.

 

We watch the green sprouts stand "at attention" like miniature soldiers in the brown earth ...

 ... and then become a green blanket.

 

We marvel when snow and ice don't kill the miraculous plants - even though we've seen it again and again.

 

 

 

And then we watch as the warmer temperatures of spring waken the sleeping crop and green heads begin filling with plump, soft berries. 

 

Then comes the rustle of golden wheat ...

 

 

 

... which gives way to the roar of the combine, chopping its way through fields and separating wheat from chaff. (There are Bible verses about that process, too.)

 

 

We have been planning for retirement for several years, and it was Randy's intent all along to "go out with a bang," planting the majority of our crop acres to wheat for our final summer harvest. As it turned out, the "big bang" harvest was last year - the best of our farming career.

 

 

 

This year's overall average was 34 bushels per acre. We had a high of 46 bushels per acre, and a low yield of 19 bushels per acre. That's what happens when you have a dry winter and spring. 

 

It's always interesting to see how start and end dates compare from year to year. Here are the stats since I began blogging:

2010:  June 18
2011:  June 10
2012:  May 26 (an anomaly and the earliest harvest, by far, we've ever had)
2013:  June 21
2014:  June 17
2015:  June 20
2016:  June 15
2017:  June 12
2018: June 12
2019: June 26
2020: June 16

2021: June 17 

2022: June 13 

 

 

The finish dates are all over the board in the past dozen years, too:

2010: June 25

2011: June 20

2012: June 9 (an anomaly)

2013: July 6

2014: July 7

2015: July 1

2016: July 13

2017: June 28

2018: June 29

2019: July 22

2020: July 7

2021: July 12

2022: June 28

June 25, 2022

Yield averages in the years since I've been blogging have been:

2010: 37.2 bu/acre

2011: 36.7 bu/acre

2012: 45.5 bu/acre

2013: 52 bu/acre

2014: 24.5 bu/acre

2015: 50 bu/acre

2016: 48.5 bu/acre

2017: 50.84 bu/acre

2018: 39.2 bu/acre

2019: 23.6 bu/acre

2020: 49.5 bu/acre

2021: 58 bu/acre

2022: 34 bu/acre

As I said earlier, 2021 was our best year ever. Though our average was 58 bushels/acre in 2021, our high yield was 86 bushels per acre. Our low was 31 - just a smidge under our overall average this year.

We had about 1,900 acres planted to wheat this year. We harvested 1,300 ourselves - from June 13 to 28 (with rain delays interspersed). We had about 600 acres of our crop custom harvested. Three combines going all at once can go over acres quickly. 

Next wheat harvest, God willing, we'll still be living in the same house, down the same dirt road. I imagine that if I want to get out in a wheat field to take photos, our neighbors or tenant farmers won't mind too much. 

But it will be different. However - like Vincent Van Gogh - I imagine I'll always find poetry in a wheat field (as long as my ankles aren't itching too badly.)

The wheat field has ...poetry; it is like a memory of something one has once seen. We can only make our pictures speak.

Vincent Van Gogh 

 

“If you stand in a wheat field at this time of year, ... it’s not hard to imagine you’re looking at something out of mythology: all this golden sunlight brought down to earth, captured in kernels of gold, and rendered fit for mortals to eat. But, of course, this is no myth at all, just the plain miraculous fact.” 

 Michael Pollan

American journalist

And That's a Wrap: Harvest 2021

The sun has set on Wheat Harvest 2021. We cut the final 20 acres of wheat on Monday afternoon. It was at a location that had more rain, and we were trying to avoid getting stuck on the soggy ground. (It's always an additional success when we don't have to call a Caterpillar tractor to pull us out of a "sticky" situation, like in 2019).

On one of my combine rides after a supper delivery last week, I couldn't resist a photo of the sunset glow in the neighbor's soybean field. To me, it also illustrates the nature of farming. While one crop is being harvested, another grows. (There's probably a lesson for life there, too.)

View from the wheat truck

And, as usual, harvest efforts have been a combination of sunshine and rain, mechanical problems and everything in between.

 

But it's always good to look back. It's part of moving forward.

Our start date - June 17 - seems so long ago.  It's always interesting to see how start and end dates compare from year to year. Here are the stats since I began blogging:

2010:  June 18
2011:  June 10
2012:  May 26 (an anomaly and the earliest harvest, by far, we've ever had)
2013:  June 21
2014:  June 17
2015:  June 20
2016:  June 15
2017:  June 12
2018: June 12
2019: June 26
2020: June 16

2021: June 17 

The finish dates are all over the board in the past dozen years, too:

2010: June 25

2011: June 20

2012: June 9 (an anomaly)

2013: July 6

2014: July 7

2015: July 1

2016: July 13

2017: June 28

2018: June 29

2019: July 22

2020: July 7

2021: July 12

Yield averages in the years since I've been blogging have been:

2010: 37.2 bu/acre

2011: 36.7 bu/acre

2012: 45.5 bu/acre

2013: 52 bu/acre

2014: 24.5 bu/acre

2015: 50 bu/acre

2016: 48.5 bu/acre

2017: 50.84 bu/acre

2018: 39.2 bu/acre

2019: 23.6 bu/acre

2020: 49.5 bu/acre

2021: 58 bu/acre

In 2021, our high yield was 86 bushels per acre. Our low was 31. As Randy says, he's "exceptionally happy." It's our highest overall yield ever.

October 2020 - filling the drill while planting wheat

The 2021 wheat crop began last September 21, 2020, when we began planting this year's crop.  He finished up on October 6. For the 2021 crop year, 1,486 of our acres were devoted to wheat.

Really, the journey toward planting the 2021 crop started with the 2020 harvest, when we binned seed wheat - Bob Dole and Zenda - to use for this year. I blogged about taking seed wheat to Miller Seed Farm to be cleaned here.

It went back into our home bins until we were ready to plant it last September/October.

I also made the annual trek to Miller Seed Farm to pick up bags of certified wheat seed. The bags were planted for seed wheat for the 2022 crop.

Here are a few other photos of the wheat crop as it grew:

 We had an early snowfall on October 26.

I included a wheat update in this post right before Thanksgiving 2020.

Here was the wheat field (and a pretty sky) on January 23. 

The wheat field - and a visitor - were pictured on March 1 (with a blog post here.)

It's amazing how quickly the wheat begins to grow in the spring. By May 1, it looked like this:

On May 4, Kanza Co-op applied fungicide to our wheat crop. That decision paid off this year. 

By May 10, it was pollinating:

We began cutting June 17 this year and were delayed by breakdowns and weather. (Such is the life of a farm family.) But we were thrilled to have our whole family here June 18-20.

Harvest 2021

In March 2020, just as the pandemic began, Randy and I were installed as presidents of our respective branches of the Kansas Master Farmer/Homemaker organization. Because of Covid, the officers (including us) kept our offices for another year. So, in mid-June, I wrote my (our) second summer letter to our membership. 

 

I began the letter with a quote from author and evangelist Vance Havner:

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength.

I used this photo from the 2020 wheat harvest as the letterhead and then referred to it in the text of the letter:

I get devotionals in my email inbox daily, but on occasion, I save one. I suppose Vance Havner’s quote resonated with me because of my lifelong connection to Kansas farming, first as a farm daughter in Pratt County, and now as a farm partner on the Stafford/Reno County line.

Likewise, as an amateur photographer, I’ve discovered that clouds punctuating an evening sky yield the best sunsets. Case in point was this favorite photo from wheat harvest 2020, when the setting sun burst through the western sky. A “broken” sky produces a much more dramatic end to the day than a cloudless evening. ...

... As I write this, we have just started wheat harvest on our farm on the Stafford/Reno County line.  It’s always an exciting – yet challenging -- time. There have already been “broken things” that we’d rather not experience. (The guys at Case know me on a first-name basis. I’m sure the same can be said for many of you at the parts store of your choice!) But “breaking” that finish line as the last truckload rumbles to the elevator is always a good feeling, too. Here’s wishing the best to you and yours as you accomplish this summer’s tasks on the farm.

Harvest 2021

Farmers and ranchers are essential workers. And, even if the world and the way we do things had to evolve, it was still a blessing to do the work that our ancestors have been doing for five generations in Kansas.

Randy & Melvin - undated photo - One of Melvin's final harvests

 

And now on to the next thing.That's part of farming, too.

 Today, it's helping out with 4-H foods judging at the Stafford County Fair.