2026’s wheat crop was best described by Wyatt: “We had 2 kinds of wheat: really good and really crappy.” This is no surprise with the struggles the wheat crop faced this year.
We started with beautiful planting conditions, and those conditions carried on through New Year’s. Then we hit the drought, with months on end with no rain. Tim said, “It went from seeing no bad fields when you were driving around to seeing no good fields.”
Wheat did what it does: It hung on day by day. The drought finally ended for us on May 17, with 4.5 inches of rain and 5 rounds of hail. All of our acres had some amount of hail damage. It was tough all the way to harvest. We were blessed with wet, cool filling conditions, which helped the wheat recover from its hail trauma.
Harvest started earlier than normal, but by the end, we were fighting mud and weeds. Yields ranged from 6.28 bu/ac to 66 bu/ac. Of course, the lowest was no till continuous and the highest was on summer fallow. Grandpa and Great Grandpa knew what they were doing with summer fallow.
Despite the challenges, we are blessed with extra good quality and are looking forward to catching up and doing business this fall!
