Local farmers adopt wait and see approach to quality of this summer's harvest

Drought, late winter storms and vicious summer heat makes for an uncertain harvest. Even among local farmers, there is some disagreement about expected quality and yield of this year's winter wheat crop.

Logan Snyder, merchandiser at Scoular Grain, thinks it's still too early to speculate about the quality.

"The stuff coming off right now is from drier areas," he said.

Once the portions still containing moisture are cut, then farmers might have a better idea about the specifics of this year's crop.

"It'll be interesting to see what the wetter areas look like once they start coming off," Snyder continued.

This summer, wheat is being harvested significantly later than last year. It is also much later than any typical year.

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Last year at this time we'd been done for about 10 days," Snyder said. "This year is definitely later than average."

He attributes the late harvest to dryness earlier in the year.

"We didn't have a lot of moisture in the spring," Snyder said.

Joe Christopher, Senior Grain Merchandiser at Crossroads Co Op. thinks the late crop this year is due to many factors.

Drought, late planting last fall and the rain last week all contributed to this year's late harvest. Some of the wheat also came out of dormancy and starting growing later than normal, which causes it to ripen later as well. Many of the fields in this area still have green berries on the wheat. Wheat crops can't be harvested while there are still green berries in the field.

"If you have enough green heads, it'll spoil," Christopher said.

Christopher predicts that most farmers won't start harvesting until this weekend, while harvest usually begins around July 10 on a typical year.

Because of the drought, the yields weren't very good last year.

"Last year was pretty rough," Snyder agreed.

Yield the year before that was better, Snyder added.

Although farms just outside Sidney haven't really begun cutting wheat, some nearby areas have already started bringing in this year's crop.

Farmers near Peetz, Colo. have begun harvesting and the volume isn't bad, said Dick Segelke of Frenchman Valley Farmers Co-Op.

"It's decent for as dry as it's been," Segelke said.

Although most Sidney farmers haven't started the true harvest yet, some are cutting small portions to test quality.

The wheat samples coming in at this point have about one percent higher protein content than last year.

"Quality has been excellent," Christopher said.

He predicts that yields will be down from last year because a lot of acres were abandoned after the April freeze. He foresees that yields will be about 50 to 60 percent of last year, but admits that might be optimistic.