Farmers hope for drier conditions as Oklahoma's wheat harvest continues

Farmers are puddle jumping as they continue laboring away at bringing in this year’s winter wheat crop.

But while heavy rains across much of the state have pushed harvest about two weeks behind schedule, an industry representative predicts Oklahoma still could see more wheat delivered to elevators in 2019 than the previous year — provided the weather cooperates.

Still, that isn’t making the job any easier.

Farmer David VonTungeln, whose family has been farming near Calumet in west-central Oklahoma for more than 100 years, said this week he can’t remember the last time fields filled with ripening wheat had seen so much rain.

“We have had a cool, really wet spring,” he said. “And wheat has kind of got a mind of its own. When it gets time for it to get ripe, it gets ripe.”

VonTungeln said his operation, which grew about 1,500 acres of wheat this year, usually has completed its harvest by now.

But not this year.

He described his saturated farmland as a sponge that willingly exudes water back to the soil’s surface when a heavy combine or truck rolls through.

“The grain is pretty much dry and ready to go, but the ground is what is giving us problems now,” he said. “It is so muddy, we can’t get the machinery over the fields without getting stuck, and it leaves ruts that are hard to work out when you go to plant” the next crop.

“So, you have to weigh getting the crop out in a timely manner (against) how much you are going to tear up your fields," he said. "It is kind of a Catch-22, risk versus reward.”

Farmers across much of the state face the same choice.

Harvest progresses

Every spring, custom wheat cutters migrate across Oklahoma helping bring in the crop.

While analysts estimate the state’s annual harvest calendar is about two weeks behind schedule, the work essentially is complete in southern and southwestern parts of Oklahoma.

Mike Cassidy, co-owner of Cassidy Grain Co. in Frederick, said the quality of wheat delivered to his elevator this year exhibited excellent yield (in bushels per acre), but added the number of harvested acres in that area of the state were way below average.

“Everybody is planting cotton, these days,” he explained, noting many farmers chose to plant something this year that pays better than wheat.

“We were fortunate to have light rains, while others around the state were flooded,” Cassidy said. “We were very fortunate and blessed to get ours out, and were glad to get it all in.”

Like VonTungeln, farmers in south-central, northwestern and northern parts of the state are waiting for their fields to dry out.

Mike Rosen, a vice president at Wheeler Brothers Grain Co., said Thursday harvest work around Kingfisher also started late and was about 35% complete.

The average weight per bushel he has seen so far is off slightly (the nominal weight is 60 pounds per bushel), he said, but “it hasn’t been as bad as you might think, with the amount of moisture we have gotten.”

He also said the average yield per acre has been excellent.

The fear now is that additional rains could further harm the quality of wheat that remains.

Rosen’s comments were backed by John Stotts, a master agronomy adviser with WinField United, a company that provides agricultural products to cooperatives and their farmers.

On Wednesday, he was seeking input from followers on social media to find a custom cutting crew.

Stotts, whose family farm is near McLoud, said it will be another week before anything can be harvested, even if “it doesn’t rain another drop."

“Everybody is nervous about getting what they have out of the field as quick as they can,” he said.

Net effect

In late April, extension service specialists, crop consultants and area agronomists predicted nearly 3.2 million acres of wheat would be harvested in Oklahoma this year, with an estimated total harvest of 119 million bushels.

At the end of May, Mike Schulte, executive director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission, said he expected the number of harvested bushels could be reduced by about 15% or more because of heavy rains that saturated fields and put some of the crop under water.

He also said that still would result in a harvest of about 90 million bushels, more than the 70 million harvested in 2018.

Late Thursday, Schulte stuck with that estimate, but cautioned the crop could be impacted further if rains that are predicted this weekend exacerbate problems with already soggy ground.

He estimated about 40% of harvestable wheat will have been cut and in elevators by the end of Saturday, if weather holds.

“Right now, our producers are really fighting the mud, struggling with the weight of the machines that are getting bogged down just because the ground cannot support them,” Schulte said.

“In areas up by Blackwell, Tonkawa and Ponca City, it will be Monday at the earliest before combines can get on the ground there, and that is if it does not rain between now and then,” he said.

Independent of the soil’s bogginess, additional heavy rains also could further degrade the wheat’s quality by causing kernels inside a plant’s head to germinate before it is harvested.

That changes a plant’s enzyme levels, making the produced wheat less desirable for milling and baking purposes.

But for now, Schulte said the wheat’s quality remains acceptable.

“It is really surprising how well the crop has stood up, considering everything it has been through,” he said. “If we can dodge the rain, we still can have a relatively decent year.”

VonTungeln certainly hopes that is the case. For farmers who grow just wheat, he observed this year’s harvest will be the only paycheck they will see this year.

“This is an especially stressful time … a little disheartening, at times,” he said. “But it is nothing we can’t overcome.

“I gladly take this as opposed to a drought, anytime,” VonTungeln said. “I seldom complain about rain.”