The Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and the Wheat Quality Council have completed the annual Hard Winter Wheat Tour across the state, and the results are pointing to a lower harvest this year.
The tour hosted 106 people from 22 U.S. states plus Mexico, Canada and Columbia.
The three-day tour reported a calculated yield for Kansas fields at 30 bushels an acre, and the total production of wheat to be harvested was projected to be 178 million bushels. The previous estimate was 191 million bushels, with a yield of 29 bushels an acre.
The tour found that drought conditions have affected this year’s wheat crop, and that has resulted in a number of abandoned fields across the state. Tour participants believe that 26.75 percent of wheat fields in Kansas will be abandoned this year. The tour did not find many problems with disease this year considering the drought conditions.
The state’s wheat crop is still three to six weeks away from harvest, and the Wheat Quality Council said a lot can happen during that time to affect the final yields and production.
[ image: Kansas Association of Wheat Growers – Facebook ]
