Wichita ? More acres of Kansas farmland are expected to be planted with hard white wheat this fall after many farmers found it fared better than the red variety.

New incentives in the 2002 farm bill and other places also are expected to produce a dramatic increase in white wheat acres, said Dusti Fritz with the Kansas Wheat Commission.

The farm bill has set aside $20 million to encourage production of white wheat.

Joe Martin, a wheat breeder with the Kansas State University research station at Hays, said two of the four producers where he is growing demonstration plots have told him they will plant only white wheat this fall.

“It has been my experience in the demonstration plots that the white wheat is outperforming the red,” Martin said. “And I’ve heard the same thing from producers.”

Overall, wheat production in the state is down after the primary growing region in the northwest part of the state was hit hard by drought for the third-straight year. About 2 million acres of wheat have been abandoned this year.

“There is no doubt that we have a lot of white wheat that wasn’t harvested,” Martin said. “I had demonstration plots that weren’t worth harvesting. But when it did make it, it did relatively well.”

Tom Redman, manager of the Right Co-op at Wright, said the majority of white wheat acres in his trade area are contracted to an incentive program with General Mills.

The agreement means there will be less room at the co-op for public varieties of white wheat, although this year the elevator is accepting delivery of both wheat grown by members of the American White Wheat Producers Assn. and for the popular Trego variety released by Kansas State University.

“We are encouraging producers to participate in the General Mills program,” Redman said. “Next year, we will be planting seed wheat for General Mills under irrigation and will become the only licensed dealer of that seed in Kansas.”

Redman said seed being produced in Idaho and Montana, along with the General Mills program, should prevent a shortage of white wheat seed for this fall.