The combines have been rolling across Kansas for the past week,
Rains that stalled the harvest in many areas of the Southern Plains were replaced this week by hot windy weather. With the exception of some irrigated wheat in the Oklahoma panhandle, Mike Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, said the state’s harvest should be wrapped up by this weekend.
Yields improved as the cutters moved north, with the northern tier counties and the panhandle offering a bright spot in a harvest otherwise projected to be well below normal. However, officials rated grain quality and protein levels excellent. In Kansas, the rapidly ripening wheat was rated in mostly fair to good condition statewide with prospects for an average crop.
Colorado farmers were one to two weeks behind their counterparts in Western Kansas and Northern Oklahoma. Officials at Tempel Grain Co. in Springfield, Colo., were seeing wheat harvest begin in earnest this week as hot, dry temperatures accelerated crop development. A worker at the grain elevator was too busy unloading trucks to spend time talking.
About 60 miles north, at the Tempel elevator in Wiley, just one truck of wheat had dumped grain as of Wednesday.
The dryer conditions across Colorado allowed more time in the field for farmers across the state, with most of the state still reporting good levels of irrigation water. Farmers were able to work 5.2 days in the field, according to the June 22 Colorado Crop Progress report.
Winter wheat was reported at 64 percent turning color, with 7 percent ripe. The crop was also reported in mostly good condition. Spring barley was 7 percent headed by week’s end and rated in mostly good to excellent condition. Spring wheat was reported as 8 percent headed, and 1 percent turning color with the rating of mostly good to excellent condition. All of the small grains progresses are significantly behind the five-year average because a cool, wet spring.
La Junta, Colo. —
