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Preparing for harvest
Published 6/22/2009 in Local News : Business
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
LANE COUNTY -- The story of harvest on Saturday was that there was no story, according to Vance and Louise Ehmke of Lane County, who sat in their grain silo turned office and watched as the rain fell.
The Ehmkes had anticipated possibly starting to cut wheat on Saturday. They had one field that would be ready by that time, but plans screeched to a halt as the rain came down. Instead, they sat, waiting for the rain to stop, for the wheat and ground to dry out.
"Waiting as fast as we can," they both said, smiling.
Normally, the Ehmkes and other producers would be harvesting by or on June 20. But Saturday came and went without cutting. Instead, grain trucks sat without drivers by fields waiting to mature just a little more or ready to be cut but still wet.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram - Wheat remained in fields this weekend in the area as the rain fell. Vance Ehmke, Lane County, says harvest activity will pick up this week in southwest Kansas.
On Saturday, Vance Ehmke said there was virtually no harvest equipment in the county. There's a big RV park at the Lane County Fairgrounds that's usually buzzing with activity by this time, but only had one trailer on its grounds as of Saturday afternoon, he said.
This week, though, Ehmke looks for the lack of harvest activity to change, citing temperatures planned to be in the 100s and a "forecast made for you." The forecast will "as they say, bring on wheat harvest," Ehmke said.
"It's hard to believe there's nothing going on and then boom," Louise said.
Finney County producer Bob Dechant said Sunday he expected to be cutting wheat by late this week. He said he anticipates an average to maybe a bit better than average harvest.
"It's hard to tell," he said, "till you get out there."
Dechant said there was some cutting around Garden City on Friday.
One of Ehmke's custom cutters, Dan Bagnell with Altendorf Harvesting, out of North Dakota, arrived this weekend with one combine. The remainder of the crew will be coming this way.
"He's the only custom cutter in western Kansas," Vance joked, watching Bagnell work on the combine in the rain.
Bagnell, Goodland, started working the harvest in Haskell, Texas, where he said they saw average yields of about 10 bushels an acre. There were wheat varieties that had 30 to 35 bushels an acre, but that was a rarity, Bagnell said, explaining yields were low because of freeze damage.
Bagnell then headed to the Okarche and Kingfisher, Okla., area, which saw yields of 60 to 70 bushels an acre last year and saw 20 to 30 bushels an acre as a good yield this year.
Bagnell then came to Lane County.
"The crops look great," he said of what he was seeing in the area.
On Saturday, Bagnell said he was spending his down time before harvest kicked into high gear on preventative maintenance, chasing parts and fixing equipment. He's expecting the week and harvest, in general, in Kansas to be hectic because a lot of the fields will be ready around the same time.
More waiting
On Saturday, while waiting, some of the Ehmkes took the time to nap, call family, do laundry, pay bills, run to town or simply snatch another Riesen out of the candy dish.
As producers get into the middle of the week, Ehmke said, there will be a lot of activity, explaining one of the issues will be whether there will be enough custom cutters available to meet the demand when it hits in western Kansas. Some cutters have been delayed in Texas and Oklahoma because of the flooding and damaged wheat.
When things pick up, Vance said, activity "goes from nothing to hang on to your hat."
The longer the wheat's out in the field, the more problems there can be, including hail and storms, and test weight going down, he said.
The whole year "pivots around this week that we're getting ready for," he said.
In the harvest report from Kansas Wheat this morning, Vance Ehmke states "Recent cool and damp weather is great for the wheat."
Ehmke also says in the report that he "expects this to be one of the better harvests in recent years -- if the weather holds out."
Karma Michael, McCune, stated in the report that farms in southeast Kansas are waiting for the ground to dry out a bit before starting cutting. "A lot of test cutting was done on Friday, but a little rain Saturday morning kept farmers out of the field...."
Ehmke said his farm went through a horribly long period earlier this year without precipitation -- from about Jan. 1 to Easter Sunday, Ehmke figured his area had about 5 percent of its normal precipitation for the year.
Then the rain came. According to Larry Ruthi, meteorologist with the National Weather Service at Dodge City, Saturday's rain activity should be the last for awhile, with warmer temperatures on the way.
"Everybody should be out harvesting," he said of the week.
At Garden City Regional Airport, about 2.76 inches of rain fell, he said, with 2.39 inches reported at Cimarron and 2.65 inches around Greensburg. The heavy rain stayed mostly southeast of Garden City up through Gray County, he said. About 1.46 inches was reported at Ulysses, and the western part of Lane County saw a reported .47 inches, .68 in the southwest corner and three-fourths of an inch in the northeast corner of Lane County.
Damage
Farmers in Haskell and Kearny counties saw damage last week from storms and hail.
Kearny County farmer Gary Millershaski had said earlier last week that roughly a third of his wheat received damage. His farm is about 11 miles north of Lakin.
On Sunday, Millershaski said he anticipated starting to cut some of his wheat sometime this afternoon, adding he tries not to dwell on the bad stuff.
"It was a bad deal for the county," he said, adding there are some areas that won't be harvested at all because the wheat heads are completely gone from storm damage. He figures he has about 80 acres he won't harvest because damage was so bad.
But, Millershaski said, he chooses to accept the damage and throw the dice for the remainder of harvest, as well as future harvests.
Millershaski said there's a lot of wheat in the north end of Kearny County that will yield 50 bushels or more an acre -- phenomenal wheat, he said.
"It's not fair," he said of the hail damage in the counties. "But hey, what is?"
He said he has the attitude that every year there's the potential for 10 percent or so of his and other producers' wheat to be hailed out. If he beats the odds, that's good, he said, and if he doesn't, he figures he would have lost that wheat anyway.
But, he said, he makes sure he's ready for the rest of harvest. When the wheat is ready, you'd better be ready to cut it, he said.
How is harvest progressing in you area? Talk about it at SWKTalk.com.
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