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The 50th wheat Quality Council tour of the 2007 Kansas hard winter wheat growing areas concluded Thursday, reporting a final average of 41.0 bushels per acre over 447 stops. This compares with a 2006 average of 37.3 bushels per acre over 435 stops. Estimated planted acreage for the 2007 crop is 10.3 million acres. This is against 9.8 million acres in 2006. The group of nearly 60 tour participants reported its findings at its traditional meeting site in the Roderick Turnbull Room at the Kansas City Board of Trade. “Historically, the report of the group has tended to mimic the May report of the USDA,” said Dave Green, director of quality control and laboratory services for ADM Milling Co., Overland Park, Kan. Green has been leading the meetings of the tour participants for several years and always gives a special mention to the propensity for the tour’s numbers to follow the May U.S. Department of Agriculture crop production report figures. This is important, since not only are tour participants shoehorned into the room, but also KCBT officials and traders. The report is traditionally given about 45 minutes after the market has closed. Once the word of the number comes out, the traders often leave to inform their clients how to react to the numbers for the next day’s trade. The third day of the tour is usually a quiet one compared with the previous two, with participants taking six different routes from Wichita to Kansas City. Some routes have more wheat than others—since four routes travel through hay and tallgrass prairie for the most part to KC. Because of that, only three of the ten cars on the tour Thursday stopped at more than two places. The final day average, after 30 stops, was 32.4 bushels per acre. The numbers on the third day sent the final average down by just six-tenths of a bushel. The big moment at the conclusion of the tour is when most of the participants on the tour gave their personal predictions for the Kansas wheat crop. Everyone drops a dollar in a kitty along with his or her prediction and whoever comes closest with his or her prediction to the August USDA crop production report for the crop wins the kitty. This year 51 participants offered a prediction. The average of the estimates was 392.74 million bushels. The highest estimate was 501 million bushels. The low was 299.76 million bushels. This reporter, who won last year’s contest, offers an estimated 359 million bushels. There is a lot to like with this year’s crop beyond all the news we’ve heard about freeze damage in central Kansas. The U.S. 83 corridor I traveled Wednesday has some excellent potential for producing a great crop. That is, if producers and Mother Nature do their part. First, just like Dr. Jim Shroyer of Kansas State University Extension Agronomy has said, producers in that area need to be flying on fungicide to reduce leaf rust damage. The cost of the chemical could be worth it in big returns come June. Second, we need moderate temperatures, but I think our luck for cool weather to keep the freeze damage from really showing up may be running out. That thought is based on historical records and chatting with a couple of meteorologists I know. Maybe it’s a gut feeling, but the crop always goes into decline after the tour, rather than improves. That’s why I’m giving a pessimistic estimate. I was prepared to deliver an even lower figure based on a higher acreage abandonment rate. Still, western Kansas has more than enough potential to make a crop—if everything works. The second day of travels of the 50th hard winter wheat tour of the wheat Quality Council began with observers finding great wheat in and around Colby, Kan.
The vehicles made 208 stops and arrived at an average of 43.2 bushels per acre, compared with last year’s average of 33.5 bushels on 194 stops. The car piloted by this reporter traveled U.S. 83 from Oakley to south of Sublette, turned east to Medicine Lodge and northeast from Harper to Wichita. From Scott City south, we saw lots of great wheat but saw a very big concern that we later found out was something seen on all stops on the tour, the presence of leaf rust. As other observers gave their reports it became clear that freeze damage became more evident as the cars turned back east to Wichita. At that point, Dr. Jim Shroyer, Extension agronomist at Kansas State University began to take over the dialogue among the tour participants to offer how all the things the other members of the tour have been seeing, from rust to powdery mildew to smut to brown stems could once again be signs of freeze damage. “What many people might be seeing as things like nitrogen deficiency probably is really freeze damage from say, Pratt east this way,” Shroyer said. “I think this year is different than 1997 because the crop has already deteriorated beyond repair.” He also called out the observers who might be underestimating the damage the crop may have taken in central Kansas while at the same time not giving enough credit to the crop in the western part of the state. “I think in some cases in the west we’re underestimating the average. In some other cases I expect to see some of the area we’ve been calling OK that we may see 1 8 to 22 bushel and 48 pound wheat,” Shroyer said. “It’s my biggest fear.” As far as all that leaf rust goes, Shroyer added, “We’re at normal but there’s going to be more leaf rust ahead. By this time next week there will be considerable leaf rust. The planes should be flying (fungicide over the crops) for the next week. As a matter of fact, they should have flown last week.” Shroyer added that secondary tillers under six to inches at this point in a field of wheat with freeze damage likely would be of little value to producing a crop. He also is hoping that temperatures remain moderate, in order for the crop to fully develop. “Want to know why Europe has 150 bushel yields? They have 60 days of grain fill while we have 30. They have cool temperatures. We need below normal temps. If we hit 90 degrees for a few days we’re going to see a big hit on this crop,” Shroyer said. In advising the tour observers of the crop estimate they are to make Thursday, Shroyer told them it would be difficult to get an accurate estimate. “There is a lot of complexity in determining the extent and severity of this freeze,” Shroyer said. “It’s difficult enough to determine an accurate guess in a good year. It’s another when a freeze and snow exacerbated the problem.” The tour moves in various routes to Kansas City on Thursday with the group giving its estimate for the 2007 Kansas wheat crop following the close at the Kansas City Board of Trade. Tour sees wheat freeze damage—and potential - Day 2By Larry DreilingThe 50th wheat Quality Council hard winter wheat tour began in earnest Tuesday with 14 cars traveling six different routes across north central and west central Kansas. “There’s at least four counties in Kansas that have freeze damage. It’s proving very difficult to determine what this crop will do,” said Ben Handcock, WQC executive director. “The interesting thing is that it looks like yields have flip flopped from last year. This year, central Kansas has problems. Last year, it was western Kansas.” All cars started at Manhattan and spread out as far north as Red Cloud, Neb., and to points such as Smith Center, Stockton, Cawker City, Luray, Hoisington, and McPherson before winding up for the night at Colby. The cars made 209 stops and arrived at an average of 40 bushels per acre. Most observers noted that planting time dictated whether or not wheat in central Kansas was damaged by the Easter weekend freeze. “We looked at two fields side by side. One totaled zero while another came out as a possible 42-bushel yield,” one observer said. “It all depended on when the farmer planted his wheat.” They also noted that where there was damage, secondary tillers are beginning to emerge in a few cases. One route, following from Geary through Dickinson, Saline, northern McPherson and northern Rice Counties, was reported to have a great deal of freeze damage. However, there was potential for some improvement. In one field of downed wheat, an observer said it “looked like a yellow shag carpet.” While in another field, another observer said, “You can tell that those plants are trying to send shoots up out of that brown mat.” With every car’s report came word of the presence of bird cherry oat aphids and powdery mildew across the area. “Despite what damage we saw, there is excellent potential here for this wheat to make a comeback,” one observer said. “It all depends on what happens in the few weeks.” Meanwhile, observers touring Colorado reported their findings at the Colby meeting. “This has to be the best Colorado crop in years,” said Peter Leavitt, a consulting meteorologist from Newton Center, Mass., who has toured the Colorado wheat crop for several years. “This is the year the farmers there have been waiting for. We even saw one field of volunteer that could be harvested. The crop is as good as it gets. We saw some burned tips but nothing I’d consider freeze damaged. Some fields could produce a nice crop without any more moisture unless it gets really hot.” Giving a preview of what the tour may see Wednesday was Dr. Jim Shroyer, Extension agronomist at Kansas State University. “This has the potential for some of the best wheat I’ve seen in western Kansas for a long time. I’ve been doing this for 27 years,” Shroyer said. “We’re a long way from having it in the bin. Anything that happens from this point on is usually bad.”
The Kansas Republican visited the Morris Krug farm south of Russell; the farm of Kansas Association of wheat Growers president Joe Kejr south of Brookville; several farms through McPherson County and the Fred and Jeanne Traskowsky farm near Woodbine. Moran then joined the WQC opening meeting for a couple of moments to report his findings, “We saw some fields that were hard hit by the freeze,” Moran said. “The story has been reported that the freeze has been localized in central Kansas, but I’m afraid it may be more widespread, since I’ve heard of problems in Missouri and Arkansas.
“We’re trying to get through the political difficultly of obtaining disaster assistance,” said Moran, who offered that a vote on disaster aid likely would be vetoed by President Bush Tuesday, since it’s tied to a date set by Democrats for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.
“It started with a field day all those years ago, then the Russians started buying wheat in the 1970s, so since then we’ve gotten more serious,” Green said. “It’s made up of bakery people, millers, shippers and producers. We have plenty of expertise on the tour, getting this snapshot of the crop.”
Between the two of them, Shroyer and Thiessen told the crop scouts call the daily crop totals minus the fields that were affected severely enough to be considered a dead crop. Under the scheme the two men devised because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the crop, a crop with no more 10 percent of a crop should be considered a zeroed out crop. “We’re following USDA guidelines for what a bad crop is,” Thiessen said “To a farmer, zero to ten is still zero.” The 14 cars of the tour will travel four different routes Tuesday, winding up in Colby in the evening.
By Larry Dreiling
The 50th anniversary Hard Winter wheat Tour, sponsored by the wheat Quality Council, begins April 30 and continues through May 3. Most participants will be looking at the results of the Easter weekend hard freeze.
As has been the custom for several years, I’ll be on the tour but for the first time this year, I’ll be offering my observations nightly at hpj.com. There also will be interviews with tour participants that you can listen to.
As always, tour participants will include millers, bakers, grain marketers, and some wheat producers as they move through Kansas wheat fields, and into southern Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and northern Oklahoma.
It’s estimated that 14 cars will be traveling six different routes to gain a feel for the wheat crop condition, according to Ben Handcock, Executive Vice-President of the wheat Quality Council. Each vehicle is expected to be carrying three to four participants. Each evening, all of the participants will meet and compare notes on what they have seen that day.
Starting in Manhattan with a training session on how to scout the crop Monday, we’ll then travel central and northern Kansas, stopping in Colby Tuesday night to come up with a first-day average.
The group then heads to western and southern Kansas for a Wichita stop Wednesday night, and finally we’ll look at eastern Kansas on our way to Kansas City Thursday afternoon, when the group will issue its state findings at the Kansas City Board of Trade.
Using visual inspection and specified measurements and observations, and applying that data to formulas developed over the years by the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service, the group expects to come up with an estimate of expected wheat production.
As pointed out in years past, the true story of wheat yield will not be known until the "tale of the combines" at harvest. “This is a snapshot in time with the crop,” Handcock has repeatedly said about the tour, and much can change or happen in the weeks between early May and harvest-time in mid to late June.
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By the end of the day, however, 
The 50th annual 
Risk Management Agency personnel joined Moran on his tour, where he said many producers offered concerns about planting a second crop.
Once Moran left, the unofficial tour leader, ADM Milling Co. vice president Dave Green, explained a bit of the history of the tour and told the group to take seriously the task ahead of them.
Meanwhile, Kansas agricultural statistician Eldon Thiessen explained the process of determining how to measure the crop while Jim Shroyer, Kansas State University Extension agronomist explained how to check the crop for freeze damage.
