LAKIN, Kansas (Reuters) — Yield prospects for wheat in western Kansas are worse than those for last year’s drought-hit crop, reflecting a dry winter, bouts of frigid temperatures and pockets of disease, scouts on an annual crop tour of the state said on Wednesday.
Scouts in one car of the Wheat Quality Council tour sampled six fields in Sherman, Greeley, Hamilton and Kearny counties, in far western Kansas, and calculated an average yield of 21.3 bushels per acre, below the tour’s year-ago average on the same route of 30.2.
A drought now in its fifth year remains the biggest problem for farmers in the region, said Daryl Strouts, chief executive of the Kansas Wheat Alliance.
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“Drought is the big picture. In the northwest we were (also) seeing effects of a rapid cool-down back in November and general winterkill issues,” Strouts said.
In west-central Kansas, wheat streak mosaic virus was widespread, with some fields severely impacted.
Scouts in a second car travelling through Logan, Wichita and Kearny counties in west-central Kansas made six stops and calculated an average yield near 21 bu. per acre, below the tour’s year-ago route average of 29.8.
Scouts in a third car found better wheat in north-central Oklahoma, near the Kansas border, calculating an average yield from three stops at 38.3 bu. per acre, well above the tour’s year-ago route average of 28.4 bu. per acre.
About 90 crop scouts are on the three-day tour. On Tuesday, scouts projected an average yield for the northern portion of the state at 34.3 bu. per acre, down slightly from 34.7 bushels a year ago and the lowest since 2001. The figure was based on stops in 284 fields.
The tour is scheduled to release its final yield forecast for Kansas, the top U.S. winter wheat producer, on Thursday.
