By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

With temperatures soaring to near 100, combines were pushed into high gear for the 2009 area wheat harvest.

And the results are coming in good, with heavy test weights. So far, there have been few reports of yields, but farmers have been pleased with what they are seeing.

At the United Ag Service elevator in Victoria, business was brisk, with the makings of a line of trucks hauling in wheat forming by mid-afternoon Tuesday already.

"It's doing pretty good," said Wayne Windholz, watching as Cody Scheck and Jason Cecil were unloading trucks. "Test weights are good."

Good indeed.

"We've got some test weights up to 65 pounds per bushel," he said.

The benchmark test weight for wheat is 60 pounds per bushel, with the higher weights effectively putting extra bushels into farmers' combines.

Harvest in the Victoria area started in earnest Monday, Windholz said, although some farmers tried to cut a little bit of wheat Friday.

Rains during the weekend put off cutting until Monday.

Harvest remains something of a checkerboard, with some areas seeing heavy cutting, while others didn't have much activity.

But the gaps are being filled in quick.

Already, the harvest has headed north, with wheat being delivered to Midland Marketing's northern tier of elevators in Palco, Zurich, Plainville and Natoma.

"They're just starting," Midland's manager Vance Westhusin said.

The strongest activity, however, remains in the central and southern reaches.

"Quality is fine," he said. "I haven't heard anything on yield."

Yield estimates are the elusive factor in the harvest so far, but that's because farmers are just getting started.

The forecast had been for a slightly better-than-normal harvest, and the high test weights are sure to contribute to that.

Cutting had been slow to start in Ellis, until Tuesday, that is.

"Yesterday, the local farmers got started good," said Roxy Solomon, office manager at Golden Belt Co-op in Ellis.

Quality was good there, she said.

"The test weights are real good," Solomon said. "I think what they're doing is they're cutting best stuff first, and I don't blame them."

Showers this morning, she said, could slow the start of the harvest. But with wind and heat, cutting should resume sometime in the afternoon.

That rain was variable, with only 0.01 of an inch in Hays, but as much as 0.38 of an inch elsewhere.

In the Riga area, Solomon said, rainfall amounted to about 0.2 of an inch, but it was enough to turn already damp fields muddy.

With rain in the forecast pretty much every day this week, she's thinking farmers will get into the field as soon as they can and cut as late as possible. The forecast this weekend is calling for a 50-percent chance of rain.

"They're going to push to get it done," she said.