staff photo by alexander simone
With Kansas Wheat Commission projecting 41.1 bushels an acre, Cooperative Grain and Supply’s Dick Tippin expects a yield slightly above average. A field of wheat grows Tuesday on Remington Rd. near 210th Rd.
Staff writer
It’ll be another few weeks until Dick Tippin expects to see wheat harvests, but the Cooperative Grain and Supply grain coordinator is expecting a promising yield.
“I think it could be fairly good,” he said. “It looks like a little above average.”
A later harvest than usual is likely, but a possibility remains for harvest to start the third week of June and finish before the month ends, Tippin said.
The sentiment, however, is not universal.
Florence farmer Chuck DeForest used to plant 1,100 acres of wheat but scaled back to 200 acres this year.
“It’s about three or four years since we’ve done a lot of wheat,” he said.
DeForest began decreasing the wheat he planted because there wasn’t enough profit.
One of his usual low-lying wheat fields still has water damage from last year, which further decreases production.
Kansas Wheat Commission projects 41.1 bushels per
acre for north-central Kansas, but Tippin says that number might be higher if not for lower prospects north of Marion County.
Even with April’s late freeze, Tippin doesn’t anticipate severe crop damage.
“There will be some fields with damage, but I don’t think that overall it’s going to be bad,” he said.
If DeForest was to harvest more wheat he’d want 60 to 80 bushels an acre, but that would be under ideal conditions.
“That’d be good, but we have to have a good year for that,” he said. “It has to be dry.”