White wheat pioneer remains bullish

By Larry Dreiling

The biggest change at Bill Mai's operation began at his kitchen table.

No, it wasn't when his wife Wilma discussed a new marketing plan.

It began on the faces of his children, when he saw how much they liked the taste of whole wheat bread made from hard white winter wheat.

That was 18 years ago. Several grandchildren later, the Wallace County, Kan., producer remains bullish on hard white wheat, to the point where his entire wheat production is hard white.

Back in those days, hard white wheat production in the U.S. was the province of the American White wheat Producers Association. While Mai wasn't there from the very beginning of the group, one could say he's early adopter, growing hard white under contract with AWWPA in the association's second growing season.

Mai's first meeting with the group's CEO, Kent Symms, still sticks in his mind.

"In 1989, Kent Symms was at the Kansas State Fair at the wheat Commission's booth and he talked me into putting white wheat into my test plots," Mai said. "He kept talking about how much better hard white was than red for making bread.

"We saved out some of the wheat from those plots in a bucket. Wilma baked a loaf in a 50:50 mix with whole red and a loaf with whole white. With the whole white loaf, the kids started taking second slices."

Mai's thinking: If it's good enough for his own kids, it ought to be good enough for the rest of the world.

"It used to be you couldn't get anyone to eat a whole wheat loaf," Mai said. "I started thinking if it's that good, then what's the point of growing anything else but hard white wheat."

Mai's farm south of Sharon Springs, Kan. is bustling, with trucks arriving to pick up hard white from Mai's storage bins to transport to Farmer Direct Foods' stone mill at New Cambria, Kan. Mai serves on the board of Farmer Direct Foods, AWWPA's successor organization.

Farmer Direct Foods is a closed cooperative, with farmers contracting to sell wheat that is turned into flour that is sold at retail markets in five-pound bags and to artisan bakers in 50-pound sacks. The farmers own the New Cambria mill and have a sales staff ready to contract with bakeries and retail outlets.

"The group has had its tough times over the years, but I think we're on our way now," Mai said. "We've done a lot of development work over the years. It's expensive, but it had to be done and things are starting to pay off."

Mai is a second-generation producer in Wallace County, with his family moving to the area shortly before he was born in 1936. He said his father sunk the first irrigation well in the area.

"Dad put down that first well in order to have some feed for his cattle. When I started farming in 1958 after I graduated from college, we started raising row crops with a little milo at first then started raising corn in 1961," Mai said.

"I started out raising hogs. I thought that's what I was going to do, and then I had a chance to get some more irrigated ground in 1965. I decided I couldn't do both, raise cattle and irrigate. So I gave up the cattle. I ran seven wells for a while in the late '60s and had two hired men for a while.

"In 1970, I got rid of my hired men and did everything myself."

Mai's farm is in a wheat-corn-fallow rotation. Several years ago, Mai tried using no-till in his operation. His efforts were thwarted on two fronts.

"One problem is that grasses tend to come back after the third rotation. We also have a lot of badger holes around here," Mai said. "It got to the point where you can't run a sprayer or anything else because the badger holes get so tall. You hit a mature badger hole and you'll know it. If you wouldn't you'd lose the wheel of tractor or sprayer in your hand."

Back in AWWPA's formative years, the only variety available to white wheat producers was Rio Blanco. Today, Mai's production includes Danby, RonL and Baker's White (a variety developed by AgriPro Coker exclusively for Farmer Direct Foods members).

"Everything is contracted to Farmer Direct Foods in one way or another," Mai said. About one-third is eligible for seed sales, so we have all sorts of ways of increasing our profitability."

The first test, beyond taste, of a great wheat variety, Mai believes, is how they perform in the field. For years, Mai has been hosting Wallace County's annual field tour.

"I really enjoy putting up these plots," Mai said. "We make the plots large enough so we can harvest them with a regular combine and to get good numbers.

"Looking at them, I realize that they can't get any better, they can only get worse. We had the same thing last year. In April, there was the potential for 70-bushel wheat. We had subsoil moisture and everything in place. Then the heat came on and reduced the yields."

Still, Mai is optimistic about his harvest and about the future of white wheat. He knows the U.S. wheat producer has been slow to adopt white wheat, but sees his position as what will eventually be standard practice in the industry because the world market demands the change.

"For years, people wanted white bread. That meant the bran, that poison, had to be stripped off," Mai said sarcastically. "That was the dumbest thing we ever could have done, removing the bran and the germ.

"Now we're coming back and using the whole kernel just like we ought to. The rest of the world has caught up to us and has learned about white wheat production. We have to be competitive."

The Wallace County field tour is Wednesday, June 20. It begins with breakfast at 7 a.m. MDT at the Wallace, Kan. Fire House before moving to Mai's field.

"My RonL has looked really good this winter," Mai said. "I hope it holds through to harvest."

Larry Dreiling can be reached by phone at 785-628-1117 or by e-mail at ldreiling@aol.com.

6/18/07

Date: 6/14/07

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