By James Jordan, Sumner Newscow correspondent — The wheat harvest is kicking in this weekend with many farmers in Sumner County cutting their crops.

Yields are low as are test weights, and that was expected with all the adversity the crop faced this year. Even so, they are glad to be getting a harvest.

Bob White

“I’ve never seen a year before where the crop was damaged by drought and flooding in the same year,” said farmer and crop insurance agent Bob White.

Sumner County Extension Agent Randy Hein said it has been a very up and down year. In the fall it looked good, then went downhill. It got better in the early spring, but the very recent rains made it go backwards as far as developing.

White was starting to cut his wheat Friday and hoped to get going full speed over the weekend.

With all the recent rain, a lot of the wheat has drowned, and it has been hard to get equipment into the fields.

“Some of the ground is still on the soft side,” he said. “But hope to get going big time this weekend.”

There was drought early on, but recent rain also did a lot of damage. White explained the clay soil makes draining difficult at times, and the wheat does not do well if it stands in water a long time.

Normally wheat farmers get about 35 bushes per acre, and so far they are getting 15-20 bushels per acre. The test weights are usually about 60, and below 50 is something the mills don’t like to see.

So far the test weights are around 45 – 50.

A lot of wheat also died in the field after standing in water. In wheat fields where there are gray areas, the wheat is dead and may not get harvested.

Hein said some wheat ripened early in the southeastern part of the county, and that seems to be doing well.  That was before the recent rain that slowed some of the wheat.

“There are some people that are done harvesting,” he said.

He estimated 10 percent of the wheat in the county has been cut, and it will take about two weeks for it all to be harvested.

There was some wheat that ripened a little later, and it may do better if the weather stays dry.

Local farmers had two really good years before last year’s poor crop.

Hein said he is still optimistic that this year will be better than last year, but it won’t be like the very good crops of the previous two years.

That, of course, depends on the weather to a great degree.

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