Kan. wheat harvest expected to start within week

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By ROXANA HEGEMAN

Associated Press Writer

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- The start of the Kansas wheat harvest may be just days away, with government statisticians estimating that about 2 percent of the crop may be ripe for harvest.

The combines usually first roll across wheat fields around Kiowa in Barber County in the southern part of the state.

At the OK Co-op Grain Co. elevator in Kiowa, assistant manager Dennis Carroll said Monday that the start of harvest in his area may begin as soon as the latter part of this week.

About 52 percent of the Kansas winter wheat crop has turned color, the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday in its weekly crop weather report.

Winter wheat condition across Kansas was estimated as 7 percent excellent and 41 percent good. About 35 percent is in fair condition, while 17 percent was in poor to very poor shape, the agency said.

Wheat prices have generally strengthened since the first of the year, pulled up by the price of other commodities and the low value of the dollar, said Mike Woolverton, grain marketing economist at Kansas State University.

The harvest in Texas and Oklahoma was disappointing, he said. That was not unexpected given drought conditions in Texas and a spring freeze in Oklahoma that decimated the winter wheat crop in those states.

"But as harvesters move into Kansas we are going to start seeing better yields, and that will add to the wheat supply," Woolverton said. "That will, I think, cause the normal seasonal downtrend in wheat prices to come about. We haven't seen it yet."

Among other spring-planted crops in Kansas:

-- About 95 percent of the corn is now up. Corn condition was rated as 13 percent excellent, 50 percent good, 30 percent fair, 6 percent poor and 1 percent very poor.

-- Sorghum condition is rated as 5 percent excellent, 74 percent good, 19 percent fair and 2 percent poor.

-- Soybeans were rated as 7 percent excellent, 64 percent good, 27 percent fair and 2 percent poor.

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On the Net:

Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics(underscore)by(underscore)State/K ansas/index.asp