By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

ZURICH -- Brent Kittelson doesn't have the luxury of sitting around, what with five -- soon to be six -- quarter-million-dollar pieces of equipment soaring through golden fields of wheat.

And that's not mentioning the tractors and trucks that support the John Deere combines that are part of Kittelson Harvesting, hailing from Saskatchewan.

Kittelson leads his harvest crew from Canada south, this year into Oklahoma, and then back north. They start all over again in the fall, when corn and soybeans are ready to cut.

Kittelson Harvesting moved into the Zurich area Tuesday, three combines cutting just outside the community while two others, headed up by Steven Kleinsasser, cut in the Webster Reservoir area.

The crew outside of Zurich came from Enid, Okla., where wheat was yielding anywhere from 25 to 45 bushels per acre. His second crew came from Coldwater, Okla., where they were cutting 5 to 35 bushels per acre.

"There was quite a bit of freeze damage," Kittelson said as he watched the Zurich crew chomp away at the wheat. "We only cut about half of what we normally do."

He had planned to go into Texas as well, but freeze damage there left little to cut.

Kittelson has been cutting wheat for Bob Rostocil in the Zurich area since 2001.

"This stuff here looks pretty good," he said. "I don't know what it will do."

Harvesting in Rooks County will take at least a week, but Kittelson said he needs to have at least two machines in Colorado by the weekend.

"These 100-degree days have gotten wheat all over the state of Kansas ready," he said.

And that's why he's looking at adding a combine to the mix.

"Normally, I run five," he said. "I'm probably going to rent one."

Buying one is a big investment, but Kittelson said they still trade machines every year.

A new John Deere, he said, will cost about $250,000, plus the header.

"The header jumped up to about $65,000," Kittelson said. "They jumped up from $40,000 to $65,000."

All as a result of the sharply higher commodity prices that only stuck around for a short period.

"I don't know what percentage it went up," he said of the combines. "I'd be scared to figure that one out."

Throw in trucks to move the grain, four-wheel-drive tractors to haul the scale-equipped grain carts and the capital costs skyrockets.

"The key is you've got to keep moving," he said.

That means cutting a lot of acres, perhaps as many as 75,000 along the way.

"We do 30,000 acres alone in Canada," he said. "We'll come back for fall harvest, too."

During the winter, his eight tractor-trailer trucks are kept busy, hauling logs in Alberta. His tractors put front-mounted snow blowers on them to clean oil lease roads.

Now 29, Kittelson started his harvest crew when he was 19, with a rented combine and a truck.

"I think I'm going to stay at six for a while," he said.