Annual Wheat Tour Ends Positively

The annual Kansas Wheat Tour ended Thursday, with a projected yield hitting its highest level since 2003.

The Kansas Wheat board reports the hard red winter wheat harvest in Kansas is expected to be 382.4 million bushels. This calculation is based on the average of estimated predictions from tour participants, who gathered information from 655 fields across the state.

The projected yield is 48.6 bushels per acre. That’s up nearly 13 bushels from last year. But the report notes wheat planting in Kansas this year is at a 60-year low of 8.5 million acres.

The report notes the Kansas wheat crop is about 10 days to two weeks ahead of average. Yet harvest still won’t begin until early to mid-June. “A lot can happen during that time, and none of it is good,” the report warns.