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!

Harvest from the Sidelines

 

I was an all-star bench sitter during my not-so-illustrious high school sports career. I wasn't known for my fabulous shooting or skillful ball handling. I was the girl who sang The Star Spangled Banner in my basketball uniform. That was the most action I got during a basketball game.

So I'm used to life on the sidelines - at least, in some things. But sideline sitting during wheat harvest is a foreign concept. From the time I was old enough to operate a stick shift and reach the pedals, I'd had some kind of job during wheat harvest. For Randy, it was the same. 

It is definitely a different feeling to sit and watch custom cutters chomp through the wheat on our ground. Four huge combines, a grain cart and a couple of semis can get things done quickly! Tye and Todd, who farm our ground, hired Frederick Harvesting out of Alden to cut our wheat, along with their own and that of other landlords. In about an hour, they had already cut one 65-acre patch and were moving onto the next field.

Later in the day, I was hoping for some sunset photos in our 80-acre field south of our house. But even with a quick supper break thrown in, they were in and out in a little more than an hour - well before the sun was starting to set.

"So, any regrets?" I asked Randy about our August 14, 2022, retirement as we sat there trying to watch the action through the heavy dust that's part of this sub-par, drought-impacted crop. 

"No," he said, admitting that the poor crop made it a little easier for the transition. (Not that either of us wished for a poor crop. That's just the card Mother Nature dealt this year in much of Kansas.)

We later drove by a combine stopped while its operator unplugged his header. Weeds in the thin wheat had likely plugged it up. 

"Well, I don't think I'll volunteer to help him with that," my farmer said as we drove by in our air-conditioned pickup with the windows closed tight to avoid the itchy dust.

Since I began blogging in 2010, I have kept track of the start date for wheat harvest. 

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

2023: June 28 

It was late this year. After months of no rain, we've had some moisture in the past few weeks. The rain was too late to help the yield very much. But it did give a boost to weeds which were able to thrive and make for an even more challenging harvest.  

We don't have information about yields or anything else at this point.

And even though Randy says he doesn't have any regrets about his decision to retire, he made multiple trips to the field to watch the progress. OK ... so did I.

And when they drove through the yard to get to their next field, Randy walked out to catch a ride.

Once a farmer, always a farmer.