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country communicate with each other and provide up-to-date information about their crop.

 

Keep your acreage, weather and crop comments coming in! Use this link to send us your comments about your wheat production and marketing decisions. Be sure to send us your photos and videos! Comments will be edited for brevity and clarity. (Please keep your comments crop-related.)

Here's a sampling of what some folks are saying: 
 

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• 8/30 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: New equipment makes monitoring the bin temperatures remotely a pretty simple job. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  
   

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• 8/30 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Harvesting Brennan wheat for seed. Worst yield was down to 32 and the best was close to triple digits. We're pleased with how the crop turned out. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)

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• 8/25 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Not a good day. Spraying Grammoxone Extra to desiccate peas and the axle on the tractor snapped. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)
  
   

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• 8/9 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Cleaning wheat from bins. Process takes about 5-6 days and do about 30,000 bushels for the Turek farm and for certified wheat that is then sold. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses. (Read more wheat-related comments at AgWeb's www.VirtualWheatTour.com)

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• 8/19 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek -- The heat continues, at least for one more day.  Field work continues with the main task being applying anhydrous ammonia. Purity samples for the seed wheat are back, and everything passed, always a good feeling.  I am expecting the germination samples soon to finish the certification process.
  
  The market is good, and I continue to make sales as the market allows.  We are finishing up baling prairie hay, and will start alfalfa again next week.
  
  Corn is nearly ready to pick.  The soybeans are suffering from the heat, and we desperately need a rain in the next few days to keep them going. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.

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• 8/20 - Treasure Valley, Canyon County, southwest Idaho: We ***finally*** finished wheat harvest today. Late, cool spring made it come on about two weeks later than usual, and then our poor old combine puked up a straw walker with about 10% of our acreage left to go. Finally had to hire a neighbor to come in and finish for us. I haven't run the numbers yet, but it looks like the yields were pretty good, though. Everything else is looking pretty good -- corn about 15 feet tall, just finished pollination, potatoes look super, onions are looking like we might get our highest percentage of colossals (5" and larger) in several years. Sugar beets have been stressing in the heat a little, but they always do, and they look at least as good as average.
  
  
   
• 8/16 - Wilbur, Wash.: Wheat harvest is in full swing in the Pacific Northwest, with some areas south of us all finished. Yields have been very good so far, 10% to 20% above average seems to be the norm. Spring wheat yields will vary quite a bit, though. Heat hurt the late sowed crops, and rust has been a problem too.

• 8/11 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: Combined only 40 acres of spring wheat so far. It was 62.5 lb./bu. 13.5 protein, Glenn wheat (about the best quality variety from NDSU). Color was great, no scab. We were hoping the protein would be over 14%. Yield is hard to tell as this was just a small portion of a much larger field. We have also killed another 450 acres of early seeded wheat, and that will be ready in a couple more days.  

• 8/10 - Southeast North Dakota: Wheat yields 10-25 bu./acre lower than 2009. The 90°+ heat is really taking a toll on the soybeans. Those beans on lighter ground are just about dead. Aphids are trying to rise up, but they don't like the heat either. Spider mites are a problem in a few fields. August makes beans and we need some rain soon.
  
  
   
• 8/9 - Blanchester, Ohio: I have seen more interest in wheat this week than I have seen in years!  If the market wants, wheat, wheat they will get!

The problem with SRWW is there is limited seed quantity.  I don't know of anyone who planted more seed acres this year and most planted less.  There has been no interest in wheat since the last run up a few years ago.

I got a good contract price so I am planting wheat again.  I had planned not to this year and move to more corn but this gives me an opportunity to keep some hilly farms covered all winter and spread the workload out.  A nice check in July is a plus, too.

This year I will get a little more seed planted per acre and make sure it gets a good clean start and see what mother nature brings us this winter and next spring.

One company was quoted as saying if you plant our seed and it doesn't make it we will give you corn or soybean seed to plant next spring!  By the time I heard and called the seed was gone and so was the deal.

If my city friends have been asking if I sold any wheat because it made national news and they knew I would strike when the iron is hot.
 

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• 8/9 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Troubleshooting the tractor. Two hours later and the problem is solved. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 8/9 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: It's a couple days away from harvest. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  
   

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• 8/4 - Ransom County, N.D.: Wheat harvest is under way. Early planted wheat yields were 20% less than the bumper crop of 2009. Quality is excellent and protein levels have been 13.8% to 14.9%. No discounts this year. Basis levels are nearly $1.00/bu. If I sold today, I'd dollar out about the same as last year. Beans and corn look GREAT.
  
   
• 8/2 - Livingston/LaSalle Counties, Ill.: I've been a little lax in making comments lately since I ended up destroying 240 of my 250 acres of wheat. We did combine the remaining 10 acres on July 2nd. Yielded right at 40 bu., then double-cropped soybeans. Wasn't really worth keeping, but one never knows. Hope the beans make up the difference. They've had plenty of rain and are growing well. Last year, I planted a total of 500 acres of wheat for myself and custom planting. So far this year, neighbors have contacted me to plant 500 acres, and my own 220. I really feel there will be a lot more planted this fall than the "experts" predict, due to an earlier fall harvest of soybeans than last year and a huge price increase. Hope everyone has a safe harvest!

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• 7/29 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Installing sensors for temperature control on our grain bin, getting it ready for harvest. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/29 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: Drilling wheat while applying liquid and anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. We use a 10,000 gallon anhydrous transport, and bulk seed set up. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  
   

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• 7/29 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: Scouting winter wheat from the pickup, shot on April 27, 2010. Looking for winter kill and checking the fields. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/29 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: Scouting winter wheat from the pickup, shot on April 27, 2010. Looking for winter kill and checking the fields. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/29 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Finishing up the wheat harvest with all hands on deck. Harvest was good overall. I haven¹t figured the exact average, but it¹s in the lower to mid 40s. Test weights were good through harvest and the wheat was dry. Protein levels could have been better. Grass and weeds were trying to take hold by the end, but did not cause harvest loss or harvest problems for the most part. My brother Greg and his crew teamed up with us to finish. That added a grain cart, two combines and several trucks and people. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/27 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Four inches of rain just before harvest. Shot on June 14. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/27 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: Checking our wheat for moisture to see if we need to continue irrigating. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/27 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: In addition to wheat, we grow potatoes. Earlier this spring we shot this video of loading potatoes for a cutter for our seed potatoes. They go through a sizer and get cut for seed. Then they get treated with fungicide and planted. We plant 75-105 acres in a day. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  

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• 7/13 - Ririe, Idaho: Brigham Cook: The wheat in Idaho is progressing. The irrigated crops are completely headed out and looking about average. The dry farm crops are still looking good, though as is always the case in July, a rain would be very beneficial as the areas in the weakest soil are starting to show stress due to lack of water. The progression of the crops is a little behind normal this year. I expect to start harvesting around the 10th-15th of August instead of the 8th. So far, this has been a pretty good growing season, with above-average rainfall early on, but has turned off warm and dry lately. With no further rains, I expect to have an average harvest with dry farm yields between 30 and 35 bu. per acre and irrigated between 100-115 bu. of dark northern spring wheat and 120-140 bu. of hard red winter wheat. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  
  
  
• 7/13 - South Haven, Kan.: Tim Turek: Combines are cleaned up and some are in the shed. About half of the wheat ground has been disked. Hot dry weather and crabgrass growth was making the fields dry and hard, but we received a 4" rain and have been out of the field for several days. This rain was right on time for our row crops that we have planted. Our next wheat project will begin Monday, cleaning seed wheat. I have Robert Henry of Grain Conditioning Inc. coming from Colorado for this work. It will probably take five or six long days to accomplish this task. Samples will be sent to Kansas Crop Improvement after cleaning for testing and final certification. Varieties that my brother and I will have for sale are Jackpot, Art, Tam 203, Everest, Fuller and Endurance. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
   

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• 7/12 - Northeast Colorado: Wheat harvest is finally getting underway in NE Colorado.  Early yield reports are in the 40’s and 50’s for bu./ac. Haven’t heard any protein contents yet.  It is about a week later than normal getting started.  Sounds like the weather should be good for the next week so a lot of acres will get harvested.  Areas further south in Colorado are also going with some yield reports as high as the 70’s.  Overall there should be a lot of bushels out of Colorado this year.  I hope everyone has a safe harvest.

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• 7/12 - Coleharbor, N.D.: Paul Anderson: Applying fungicide to wheat to take care of scab. Visit www.VoicesAcrossthePlains.com to follow videos and posts from these and other Voices Across the Plains growers as the season progresses.
  
   

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• 7/9 - Perkins County, northwest South Dakota, and Adams County, southwest North Dakota (small wheat farmer with planted acres @1,000): Our "early planted spring wheat" (snow still on the ground in late April and early May) looks OK. We completed planting in Perkins County prior to May 15. We completed two quarters in Adams County by month's end. We were unable to plant two other quarters, so the same will be chem fallowed ground. On average, we have all spring planted on or before April 30. My memory is that we have not planted this late since the last part of the 1970s when I started farming.
  
  The "late planted spring wheat" will need miracle weather to mature for harvest. We have no grain drying system, so a wet fall would make harvest difficult. The hot, dry weather prior to July 4 with high winds was hard on our crop since we had excellent moisture going into planting, but we could use some slow, soaking rains. I have no expectations that the spring wheat we planted in Adams County will yield anywhere close to the average county yield.
  
  My neighbor's winter wheat in Perkins County looks excellent. I would guess that it could yield between 40 to 50 bu. per acre. I believe that a spring wheat yield might be 20 to 25 bu. per acre if we get some more rain and some average temperatures.
  
   

• 6/14 - Northeast Colorado: The wheat crop in this area looks good.  We were just beginning to get a little dry but have received around 1.5” of nice rains the last three nights (6/11 thru 6/13).  It should finish out the wheat and keep the test weights up.  Who knows about the protein?  There has been some strip rust and disease in the area but we have had enough warm weather to keep most of it at bay to be able to let the wheat finish.  Some areas of Colorado were hit be severe weather the last couple days and I certainly feel for those guys.  Everyone have a safe harvest season.
  
   
• 6/14 - McPherson, Kan.: There has been wheat cut not too far south of me last week.  I suspect it was still high moisture and run through a bin.  We should be cutting by the end of the week, depending on the weather.  We are forecast for heavy rains the next few days.Local price is down to $3.35 a bushel.  We are getting to the point I may have a revenue insurance claim, even with decent yields.  We'll see.
  
   

• 6/14 - Kingfisher County, Okla.: SUNUP's Clinton Griffiths takes a trip to Kingfisher county to check on how wheat harvest is progressing for wheat producer Tom Glazier and his family.
  
  
   

• 6/14 - Briscoe County, Texas: Cotton and corn are off to one of the best starts in years.  All crops look great with no real insect or weather concerns. Wheat harvest has been going for about a week.  Yields and test weights are good but basis is terrible.  A lot of it should have been grazed out.
  
   
• 6/11 - Henry County, northwest Ohio: We are all pretty much aware of the challenges that we have faced this spring with too much rain, beans that have not been planted, yellow corn, etc., etc., and to make matters worse the head scab in our wheat is as bad as any that I have ever seen. I estimate at least a 25% loss and of course that depends on average test weight, which looks like a long shot. I have a bad feeling the word vomitoxin will surface at harvest.
   

• 6/11 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: Wheat seeding started on April 22 and we finished on June 1st. Harvest will be very spread out… Everything seeded prior to April 29 has been sprayed, and is looking great. All of it was planted on last year's prevent plant cover crop, or pea and bean ground. No leaf disease has showed up yet. We did not include fungicide with the herbicide application because it all looked so clean. But about 400 acres of the later wheat was put back on wheat ground, and now it's raining again, so I know we will be adding Headline to the weed spraying on those fields. Sunshine and market boost would both be welcome. This morning we had wind, rain and 46 degree temps. Last spring we had to leave 30% of the farm in prevent-plant... This year we got every acre planted.
  
   

• 6/9 - Texas: While the Rolling Plains and other parts of Texas experienced near-perfect conditions for the wheat harvest, other parts of the state became further parched, according to Texas AgriLife Extension Service personnel. The North, Southeast, Panhandle and nearly all of East Texas remained dry, with dryland crops not growing or stressed due to lack of moisture.
   

• 6/8 - Hancock County, northwestern Ohio: Head scab and storms are putting the wheat down.
  
   

• 6/7 - Grayson County, Texas: Finished up harvest on our 6800 acres of wheat, wow what a great year it was this year. Last year we lost 4550 acres to all the freezing weather and this year the rain and snow helped out. Getting calls everyday to harvest other fields in the area with 11 combines looks like we are going to be busy. Corn is standing about 5 ft tall and some milo is starting to head. Several farmers in our area planted cotton this year and all the fields look good just need some weed control.
  
   

• 6/7 - McPherson, Kan.: I am two weeks away from wheat harvest.  We usually start within a couple days of June 20, and it looks about on par.  I am still predicting average yields.  There is disease pressure, but not out of the ordinary.  Cash price is at a contract low of $3.65 and still dropping.I was chatting with a famous wheat breeder at a wheat school is Hayes the other day.  He commented that many people switch to corn when the price difference is less than $1.50.  We are currently only $.80.
   
  
   
• 6/7 - Wilbur, Wash.: In the last two weeks I have received over 3.5 inches of rain! It’s been years since we have had one of these weather events.  The pasture grass is still nice and green, and the wheat is looking good.  The spring wheat is growing too and needs to be sprayed now, but too wet to do so! The combines in the shop.  Looks like she will have lots of straw to deal with!
  
   

• 6/7 - Sanilac County, Mich.: Comments regarding fungicide research trial and some application recommendations.
  

• 6/4 - Western Walsh County, northeast North Dakota: We finished wheat and sunflower seeding on June 1. What started out so good turned into a long spring, with several rain delays. About half of the edible beans were planted the past three days, but now we are held up with another rain overnight...only 0.7", enough to make a delay again. The early wheat and canola has been sprayed, but we have a bunch of acres to go over when it's dry again.
  
  The peas look as good as we have ever had. I also put in 40 acres of lentils...just to see if we can get them to maturity here in the wetter, eastern part of ND, without losing them to diseases. Our plan is to use an agressive fungicide program, spraying on a regular schedule. The legume "pulse crops" have been a big plus for the small grain rotation. They are a good option for us, where the lack of heat units and short growing season  really limits soybean production. This our 15th year of pulse crops in the mix.
  
  A fungicide will be added to all our herbicide mixes when spraying wheat.
  
   
• 6/4 - Southwest Ohio: I talked to several wheat producers across the 30-mile path of our little wheat area yesterday. We are optimistic the wheat will harvest by July 4, our normal goal with decent yields and quality. Cereal leaf beetle larvae reduced some yields, Septoria and Staganospora leaf spots reduced more total yields, with many moderate to severe field ratings. There was not time to get treatments on and no incentive to, at $4 wheat. I think we will average 70 bu. per acre again this year with yields as low as 60 and a few over 100. Scab and quality is still a concern but reduces each day of maturity. There are very few white heads showing in SW Ohio.
  

  -- Poison Ivy in a southern Ohio wheat field.   (Have any photos of the crops on your farm? Send them to AgWeb and have them posted on Crop Comments! Be sure to include a caption.)

  
   
• 6/4 - Northwest Cherry County, Neb.: Rain delayed corn planting, but lots of days of high winds and we are now really dry. Too dry to dig a post hole on the hard ground. Running pivots nonstop except for the one the wind took out. Corn looks OK, grass and oats are slow with all the cold weather and lack of sunshine.
   
   

• 6/1 - Lewistown, Mont.: I think most of Montana picked up some pretty good precipitation this Memorial Day week. We had 2 inches here and it sounds like it was pretty general all through eastern Montana, as well. The crops in general look good, but late. Our early seeded spring wheat looks as far along as the winter wheat. I would estimate the winter wheat in our area to be a good 10 days behind normal in maturity. We had started to notice some grasshopper hatches prior to this rain, so hopefully it has put the kibosh on them. Always nice to avoid the hot weather, but the weatherman is forecasting a freeze for tonight, which probably wouldn't hurt us, but the freezing at night is starting to get old.

  
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