News

Rain welcome in Kansas, but might not help wheat yields

The three-to-four inch rain in Kansas may be too late to boost winter wheat yields, but it’s still welcome.  Central Kansas grower Doug Keesling tells Brownfield Ag News his fields were yellowing from being too dry and are past the growth stage where yield is determined.

“But it sure us farmers’ disposition a lot better,” Keesling told Brownfield Ag News Thursday, “because we have better attitude about not only the quality of the wheat, but it also helps us going into a period of time here in the spring where we’re getting ready to plant other spring crops.”

In fact, Keesling says, the rain may result in more wheat acreage being abandoned in favor of putting in a spring-planted crop to increase revenue per acre.

“Sometimes if we have good moisture and good conditions, it’s easier for us to tear that up and to go back in with a rowcrop of some sort, maybe corn or beans or something like that,” said Keesling.  “I’m sure from visiting with others in my neighborhood that some of that will happen this spring.”

Keesling says the rain will save a lot of wheat that would have been dead in another couple of weeks if the rain had not have happened.

AUDIO: Doug Keesling (10 min. MP3)