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2009 Hard Winter
Wheat Tour of Kansas
Mark Nelson
May 2009
May 4 through the 6th, I had the
opportunity to participate in the Wheat Quality
Council’s, 2009 Hard Winter Wheat Tour. It gave me a
chance to see the Kansas wheat crop up close and given
the early April frost and relatively dry winter, a
chance to better assess damage and crop prospects.
The WQC Wheat Tour makes absolutely no
claim about being official in any way. The results are
not reported to USDA, nor are they used by USDA-NASS as
they work to develop public estimates of crop size.
So what is the tour? The WQC Hard Winter
Wheat Tour represents a great opportunity for a producer
of Kansas wheat to visit, interact, question and be
questioned, and ultimately learn more about the wheat
they grow and the wheat industry that purchases,
transports, trades and processes it. You will never be
around a more comprehensive and diverse group of wheat
industry participants. Folks on the tour include the
people who buy your wheat directly, from elevator
managers to grain company merchandisers; it includes
milling company personnel, bakers and food processors,
and importers from around the world, who want to see
where and how the wheat they buy is grown. You’ll
encounter shippers of wheat, grain traders, market
consultants, the media and price analysts. Participants
include state and federal agricultural employees,
university personnel and wheat organization
representatives. All in all, it is an incredibly
diverse group of people, from all around the world with
varying backgrounds and perspectives, and I’d argue,
some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.
The tour covers all of Kansas plus parts
of Nebraska and Oklahoma, and normally consists of 12 to
16 cars, with three to four people each traveling the
state on six different routes to scout winter wheat crop
conditions as of the first few days of May.
Participants are rotated each day, giving you the
chance to develop a network of people to keep in contact
with over the years.
Each car has at least one rider with
several years of experience who can help newcomers, and
there are also agronomists and extension specialists who
participate on the tour and are available to help answer
any technical questions during the evening reports when
the whole group gets back together.
The tour relies on the theory of large
numbers. Each car will make anywhere from 12 to 20
stops, so over the three day tour, more than four
hundred Kansas wheat fields will be examined. At each
stop we measure and examine the wheat (four to eight
separate stalk counts per stop), making a yield estimate
based on formulas provided by the Kansas Ag Statistics
Service. We also scout for diseases, pests, moisture
conditions and any other factors that could have an
influence on yield or crop quality. Again, while the
results are unofficial, each car works very hard to
accurately assess the current state of the Kansas wheat
crop.
As I mentioned earlier, the WQC Wheat
Tour makes absolutely no claim about being official in
any way, yet not only do market and agricultural
reporters participate on the tour, they report results
each day. And yes, while tour results have sometimes
been associated in the press with wheat price declines,
if you look back over the years, WQC Wheat Tour results
have also been associated with price increases on many
occasions.
It is important to understand that wheat
prices change every day and that the “wheat market” will
trade information; official or unofficial, accurate or
inaccurate, as part of that process. The benefit of
publicly reported information such as the WQC Wheat Tour
and much more importantly, USDA crop and livestock
reports, is that by making this information public and
available to ALL, we better ensure an even playing
field; one where all market participants – including
farmers – have the same information. If for some
reason, USDA crop and livestock reports were no longer
funded and/or available to ALL, I guarantee you, the
companies that buy and process agricultural products
would be working to gather crop and livestock
information. It would cost them but they would pay
whatever necessary because it impacts their bottom line,
and they would not share that information with farmers.
We need accurate crop and livestock information in order
to make more informed marketing and management decisions
and we need that information to be public and available
to all market participants.
First
Night – May 4, 2009
The WQC Hard Winter Wheat Tour begins
each year in Manhattan, Kansas. A brief overview of the
tour, what it is about and how it works is provided and
participants introduce themselves to the rest of the
group. Dr. James Shroyer, Kansas State University,
Extension Agronomy Leader and Wheat Specialist, provides
an overview of the crop, noting current conditions and
preparing participants for what they may encounter over
the next few days. Lastly, Glenda Shepler, our new
Director of Kansas Agricultural Statistics, shares with
the group some basic mathematic equations for use in
estimating yield based on the number of stalks per
linear foot of row (using a rolling ten-year average of
actual data). Other factors that come into play with
the equations are row width, stage of growth, location
within the state and average estimates of head weight.
Day One
– May 5, 2009
I travel the “pink route” every year and
try to take each of my stops in the same general area.
This year on day one I had the privilege of riding with
Dr. Mike Woolverton, KSU’s grain market analyst and
Michael Hotz, a merchandiser with Miller Milling company
from Minnesota.
We left Manhattan at 6:30 am and traveled
east along highway 18 making three stops, one each in
Geary, Dickinson and Ottawa Counties. Based on the
stalk counts, the average yield from the first two stops
was 55 bushels and soil moisture was great as we were
able to push a four foot soil probe all the way. At our
first Ottawa County stop, we visited with the producer
who informed us that the wheat was no-tilled in after a
good sorghum silage crop was taken off last fall.
Topsoil was good but subsoil was a little less (two
feet) and the estimated yield was 39 bushels. We then
stopped in Bennington for breakfast and visited with
another producer who shared that earlier in the season
he had thought that in that area, they’d all be
averaging 50 + bushel wheat. But now, the crop didn’t
look as good and it was more likely going to be an
“average crop.”
From Bennington we proceeded north on
highway 135, making one more stop in northern Ottawa
County before turning west on highway 24 and making a
stop in Cloud County. At these stops the soil profile
was nearly full (3.5’ and 4’) and yields averaged 41
bushels. Proceeding west into Mitchell and Osborne
Counties, soil moisture was much more variable (6”, 4’ &
2’) yet because of good fall rainfall, the stalk counts
were higher as were the estimated yields (53, 43 & 50)
but more moisture will definitely be needed to reach
those yields. Our last stop before lunch was in Rooks
County near Woodston, where we stopped at a field that
was no-tilled into dryland corn ground. While subsoil
moisture was good, this later planted field had a
relatively poor stand with an estimated yield of 22
bushels to the acre.
We stopped at the Duck Blind in Stockton
for lunch and met David Reed and his father. On behalf
of myself, Dr. Mike Woolverton and Michael Hotz, I’d
like to thank David and the Rooks County Farm Bureau for
their hospitality. After lunch we drove west of
Stockton and made a stop at one of Davids’ fields,
no-tilled, continuous wheat where the subsoil moisture
was great, a full 4’ profile.
We then continued west on highway 24
making one more stop in Rooks County and one stop each
in Graham, Sheridan and Thomas Counties. We also
stopped and toured the Cottonwood Ranch east of Hoxie, a
place I highly recommend. As we moved west, the stands
continued to improve with estimated yields of 37, 40, 53
and 55 bushels respectively.
Day One
Tour Summary
We ended the day in Colby and the group
was joined by a few producers from western Kansas.
There is a general meeting where each car reports their
findings. For my car (pink route) we made 13 stops in
all and our estimated yield was 45 bushels per acre.
The four-car, pink route average was 44 bushels per
acre, and the entire six route, 15 car, 216 stop average
yield was 43 bushels per acre, which compares to 45
(2008) and 40 (2007). Overall there was very little
disease (short of some powdery mildew) and no insects to
speak of that might hold back yields, and if
temperatures don’t get too hot, yields could potentially
climb along much of this route. Compared to earlier
years, I thought the wheat in spots was a little further
ahead.
Day Two
– May 2, 2007
The day two “pink route” is one of the
longer routes, so my car left Colby at 6:00 am and
traveled west on I-70 to Goodland. I had the privilege
of riding with Dr. Dirk Maier, KSU Department of Grain
Science, Marti Schlatter, a wheat merchandiser for
Horizon Milling/Cargill and Jason Middleton, with CLD
Pacific Grain.
From Goodland we proceeded south along
highway 27, making stops, in Sherman, Wallace and
northern Greeley Counties. Subsoil moisture was good
(4’, 3.5’ & 4’) and estimated yields were 46, 25 and 42
bushels respectively. We arrived at the Tribune Branch
Experiment Station at 8:00 am and briefly toured their
over-sized crop rotation, demonstration plots and
visited with Dr. Alan Schlegel.
We continued south along highway 27,
making another stop in Greeley, one in Hamilton County
and then at Syracuse, we turned east on highway 400 and
made a stop in Kearney County. Here yield potential
will likely be limited by soil moisture as we could push
the probe only 2’, 2.5’ and 2.5’. While it had recently
received precipitation, the wheat showed signs of
drought stress and estimated yields were 25, 31 and 30
bushels per acre but I believe additional moisture will
be needed to attain those yields.
We continued to proceed east making a
stop just west of Garden City and then headed south
before turning east on Plymell Road and on into Gray and
Ford Counties. On this leg we made four stops, soil
moisture was good (4’, 4’, 4’ & 3’) but estimated yields
were only average, running 31, 34, 39 and 36. We
stopped at Eva’s Kitchen in Montezuma and met Joe Jury
for lunch; we also stopped at one of Joe’s fields, a
good looking no-till wheat field, sowed into failed
dryland corn from 2008.
Our final three stops were along highway
54/400 in Kiowa, Pratt and Kingman Counties. Subsoil
moisture was uneven (2’, 4’ & 3’), the crop was a little
behind relative to prior years and estimated yields were
average (43, 41 and 25), the last field clearly showing
the effects of the April 6 freeze.
Day Two
Summary
We ended the day in Wichita and the group
was joined by a few producers from central Kansas. For
my car (pink route) we again made 13 stops and our
estimated yield was 35 bushels per acre. The three-car,
pink route average was also 35 bushels per acre and the
day two, six route, 15 car, 212 stop average yield was
40 bushels per acre, which compares to 41 (2008) and 43
(2007). Overall, while more insects (Russian Wheat
Aphid and Brown mites) and disease levels (Wheat Streak
Mosaic, Rust, and Barley Yellow Dwarf) were higher than
on day one, the overall levels were less than in
previous years. And while freeze damage was clearly
observed along several routes, damage was less severe
than I feared.
The entire, two-day, six route, 427 stop
average yield was 41 bushels per acre, which compares to
43 (2008) and 42 (2007). Lastly, the Oklahoma Wheat
Commission joined the group and reported their
estimates, including a 20 bushel yield and an Oklahoma
crop of 77 million bushels compared to 167 million a
year ago. They reported severe freeze damage in the
southern part of the state with damage less severe as
you moved north.
Final
Wheat Tour Comments
When the WQC Wheat Tour is complete,
participants are asked to provide an estimate of the
Kansas wheat crop. To do this we have to come up with
an estimate of abandoned acres, subtract that from the 9
million acres planted last fall and multiply that by our
estimate of statewide yield. All in all I came away
feeling better about our prospects than when I started
the tour but clearly, there is a long ways to go before
the Kansas wheat crop is in the bin. I’m estimating
that we’ll ultimately abandon more than 500,000 acres
and that yields will end up slightly higher than we’re
calculating now, somewhere in the 44 to 45 bushel range,
resulting in a 378 million bushel crop.
The unofficial, weighted average WQC Tour
participant estimate was 333 million bushels.
I strongly recommend that all wheat
producers should at least once in your life, participate
in the WQC Tour, or at the very least, come to the day
one (Colby) or day two (Wichita) summary meetings. The
tour truly represents a golden opportunity for producers
of wheat to interact with downstream handlers of your
product. I guarantee, you’ll never be around a more
comprehensive and diverse group of wheat industry
participants. If you’d like more information about the
Wheat Quality Council Hard Winter Wheat Tour or would
like to participate in the 2010 tour, or if a County
Farm Bureau would like a short presentation about the
tour and wheat estimates in general, please feel free to
contact me at (785) 587-6103 or
nelsonm@kfb.org.
Other information on the tour can be
found on the Wheat Quality Council web site at
www.wheatqualitycouncil.org or by contacting Ben
Handcock at (605) 224-5187.
 
“Six
Routes across
Kansas”
“Counting Stalks”
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