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By MIKE CORN
Hays Daily News
GRAINFIELD -- A bumper wheat crop, a better than expected corn crop and the promise of an outstanding milo harvest has forced area elevators to stuff grain into virtually every nook and cranny they can find.
And they still don't have enough room.
So some of the crop is going on the ground, at least until the harvest is wrapped up and storage or shipping arrangements can be made for what might be the first top-notch fall harvest since 1999 -- the start of a seven-year drought that shook northwest Kansas agriculture to its core.
Grain already is on the ground at the Cargill terminal facility near WaKeneey, and at elevators in Quinter, Grainfield, Park, Grinnell, Oakley and Gem. There's a promise that even more grain will go on the ground in future days and weeks.
At Heinrich Feed in Grainfield, owner Galen Heinrich said about 150,000 bushels of milo are on the ground at Park, while another 80,000 bushels are on the ground at Grainfield.
More than 600,000 bushels of corn are on the ground southwest of Quinter at one of two bunkers operated by Midwest Co-op, based in Quinter.
That pile continues to grow as corn flows in, buoyed by high yields such as those being cut by Butch Minium. On Thursday, he delivered a truckload of corn to the bunker and said dryland yields are ranging from 75 to more than 100 bushels per acre.
"We haven't done the irrigated yet," he said.
Milo soon will be going into a second bunker, Midwest manager Rob Thompson said, but the crop needs a good hard freeze before the harvest begins in earnest.
And then look out, because the milo will be going on the ground almost as fast as it can be delivered to Midwest locations.
That's because there's simply no room at the inn, or in this case the prairie skyscrapers that dot the countryside.
"Storage is going to be a huge problem in western Kansas before we get done," Thompson said.
The Gove County milo crop is outstanding, according to Quinter farmer Jeremy Riedel, who was cutting milo as the sun was setting Thursday.
"Oh, this field is probably doing about 50" bushels per acre, he said. "Most of it's been in the 80- to 90-bushel range. This is one of our worst fields."
Likely, it's that way because the field, just to the southwest of Park on the south side of Interstate 70, failed to catch a rain that would have boosted the crop production even higher.
"We'll take it," he said, "especially with the prices."
But Riedel said he's been forced to haul the milo from Park to the Cargill facility because moisture levels have been slightly higher than what local elevators are accepting. Locally, he said, milo has to be below 14 percent moisture; Cargill is accepting grain with 15 percent moisture.
That lower moisture requirement, he said, likely is the reason why so many milo heads littered the ground in the field he was cutting, he said.
"I'd say 20 bushels are on the ground, and with $3 milo, that's $60 out of my pocket," Riedel said.
This year's crops, he said, probably are the best the area has seen in 10 years.
"I had 60-bushel wheat but got hailed out two days before harvest," he said. "So I only got 30 bushels. These higher prices are helping."
There was a crush of wheat flowing into elevators, and Midwest, for example, has been shipping out this year's wheat crop as fast as it can.
Thompson said Midwest has shipped 220 rail cars from its I-70 locations so far this month.
"And we've got a lot to go," he said.
The crush of grain is what's prompting elevator operators to store crops outdoors.
"It's all I want," Heinrich said of the grain he has been forced to pile on the ground. "Storing grain outside is not a good idea."
But, if he has to do it, he prefers putting milo on the ground. Wheat and corn simply aren't able to stand up to the vagaries of Mother Nature the way milo can.
For Heinrich, he thinks the dryland corn harvest nearly is complete.
"Just a dribble left," he said.
As for milo, "I don't know," he said.
If he had to hazard a guess, he's say anywhere from 30 percent to 40 percent of the crop remains to be cut.
And what a crop it's been.
Corn fields, Heinrich said, are yielding about 10 bushels more per acre than they were expected to do.
"Some we thought were poor came in at 70" bushels per acre, he said. "There were some good yields. It didn't look like it was that good in August, but it was there."
Top stands of irrigated corn, he said, were producing about 220 bushels per acre. Fields with smaller wells and lower planting rates had yields of 160 to 180 bushels per acre.
"I think everybody is pretty pleased," Heinrich said.
With those yields and prices that on Wednesday stood at $3.25 a bushel, there are smiles on faces of farmers.
"The farmers aren't getting filthy rich," he said, pointing out the costs of planting and harvesting the crop. "They're going to make some money, but they're not going to be millionaires."
The storage problems simply are a result of a wealth of grain.
"It was a big wheat crop out here," Heinrich said.
While wheat was shipped off to other locations, he couldn't free up enough space.
"We had very little room for milo, so we started piling it as soon as it came in," he said.
Heinrich said he prefers not to store corn on the ground if at all possible.
For Thompson, at Quinter, much of the milo crop remains to be cut.
"The milo really needs to freeze," he said of drying down enough for farmers to cut the crop.
Much of the dryland corn crop is out of the field, he said, but irrigated corn still is too wet.
"It's been real slow on milo," Thompson said. "It's like we're in between harvests right now."
Thompson has been hearing of good yields as well, with 70- to 75-bushel yields on the poorest of corn fileds. Better fields of dryland corn are producing more than 100 bushels per acre.
While few milo fields have been cut, the promise is there.
"There will be a lot of milo that will be at 100 bushels per acre," he said.
At Midwest's Grainfield location, yields on milo were in the 80- to 90-bushel range, he said, and they weren't complaining.
Those yields will translate into a lot of milo.
In fact, Thompson said, they have a million-bushel bunker ready for milo at Quinter.
Midwest also expects to pile milo on the ground at Grainfield, Studley, Hill City, Morland and possibly Bogue.
The last time grain was piled on the ground at that many locations was in 1999.
"The last time it rained after May," he said, referring to a long, dry spell that was a disaster to northwest Kansas crops.
That seven-year drought has had something of a reprieve, thanks to heavy snows late last year. During that drought period, either wheat or fall crops were hard hit by a lack of rain.
It was enough, for example to bring Midwest Co-op to its knees, as was the case with several other grain elevators in northwest Kansas.
Midwest owners just last month agreed to sell its facilities to South Dakota based Dakota Beef.
Tentatively, Thompson said, the transfer is expected to take place Nov. 7, at which time the elevators will be known as Midwest Grain.
"We haven't had a good fall crop in, I don't know, four or five years," Heinrich said.
In that period, he said, little of the corn or milo crops were cut with combines.
"It got put up for silage," he said.
Special-projects reporter Mike Corn can be reached at (785) 628-1081, Ext. 129, or by e-mail at mcorn@dailynews.net.
Kansas the crop state
Kansas-grown corn and milo generally stays within the state, the result of demand by feedlots and now the ethanol industry.
Little of either crop, said Galen Heinrich, at Heinrich Feed in Grainfield, will go to the export market.
Kansas-grown wheat, on the other hand, generally is headed for the export market soon after it's harvested and delivered to elevators.
As a result, most of the corn and milo is moved about by truck rather than by rail, as is often the case with wheat.
"None of the corn would go to export," Heinrich said. "There's too much demand right here."
Thats not a new situation, what with the rush to build ethanol plants in the area.
In fact, Kansas feedlots require more corn than is produced in the state.
"Nebraska has to feed half of the Kansas cattle," he said. "Kansas demand is taken care of by Kansas and Nebraska."
How far into Nebraska the Kansas demand reaches depends on the kind of year the Sunflower State has.
That's evidenced by the crush of traffic of grain trucks from Nebraska bound for the feedlots in southwest Kansas.
Grain use by ethanol plants has added to the demand, taking anywhere from 10 to 15 million bushels of grain each year at each plant.
* Mike Corn, HDN
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