Harvest should start next week
STAR-JOURNAL STAFF
The 2002 wheat harvest is just around the corner, and farmers' combines should start rolling sometime next week, according to the local co-ops.
Kevin Suderman of Cooperative Grain and Supply of Hillsboro estimated that he'll see grain by early or middle next week. No test weights have come in yet, he said.
Suderman said that the wheat is looking fairly decent, despite some disease issues that he's seen toward the end of the growing season. Yellow dwarf has been a problem, as has wheat streak mosaic.
Heavy rainfall within the past month has helped the county's crops, but Suderman still foresees an average harvest since the area has been so dry overall.
"I don't think it'll be anything spectacular," he said.
Cooperative Grain and Supply has elevators in Lehigh, Hillsboro, Canada, and Marion.
In Durham, Curtis Frick of Agri-Producers is glad that the county's wheat harvest won't be as difficult as the harvests in western Kansas, where the yields are extremely low.
"We're in a fortunate area again," Frick said.
He said it's too early to predict what the crops will yield, but to be in the wheat harvesting business, you've got to be an "eternal optimist," he said.
"Wheat's kind of a funny crop — it can surprise you," Frick said.
Although farmers have been test cutting in fields near Salina, he estimates that Marion County farmers will start the combines next week. It should be an average year, he said.
Agri-Producers has elevators in Durham, Tampa, and Lincolnville, with harvest houses in Ramona and Burdick.
