By Carolyn Cole
Published on June 5, 2008

Several Canadian County farmers anxious to start harvest cut the first paths in their wheat fields Monday to be turned away at the grain elevator.

Most of the grain hauled in to the Banner Co-Op Monday afternoon was too damp to be stored, worker Betty Weach said. The grains measured a 14 percent or higher humidity, when the highest the elevator can store is 13 percent.

Officially she said the harvest has started and expected to receive more farmers hauling in grain Tuesday.

“I say the bulk will start this weekend if we don’t get any more rain,” she said.

So far Canadian County farmers have been lucky; most of May’s severe storms plagued other areas of the state. Rain right now could prove devastating to the wheat crop.

“So far we have been very fortunate,” Weach said. “Of course last year it started out like that, too. Let’s hope it keep missing us until it gets cut.”

The wheat harvest of 2007 was a disaster. County extension educator Brad Tipton estimated only about 60 percent of the wheat crop was harvested before a deluge of summer storms turned fields into mud pits, impossible to negotiate in a sinking combine.

The water also ruined the grains themselves. If the wheat heads absorb water, when they dry out, the grains never shrink to their original size, affecting their weight, quality and value. A bushel of wheat is expected to weigh 60 pounds, but if a bushel weighs less, farmers are paid less for the harvest.

Rains also increase the humidity in the fields, and grains need to have a moisture level of less than 12 percent to be stored at an elevator without molding. Farmers would have to wait for the crops to dry out before harvesting.

Because farmers have to make up lost ground from 2007 losses, Tipton said the later than usual harvest has put them on edge.

“They’ll cut into days and nights because this wheat is too valuable to lose,” he said.

While prices reached $7.41 per bushel Monday for top quality wheat, compared to $5 per bushel last season, Tipton said farmers’ costs have skyrocketed, and many will struggle to break even. Prices for diesel and gasoline to power tractors, combines and trucks to haul the grain has skyrocketed. The cost of fertilizer has also climbed, because it is directly tied to fuel prices, Tipton said.

Combined with higher seed costs due to the puny harvest last summer, he said many Canadian County farmers have spent as much as $100 to $125 per acre to raise wheat.
“They have to get a crop out or a lot of guys will go broke,” Tipton said.