Wichita ? Kansas farmers have started cutting their earliest spring-planted corn, with the drought-stressed corn doing as poorly as expected in areas where it has not already been cut for silage.

“In southeast Kansas some of those people are going to have a pretty good crop this year, but everybody else is pretty stressed,” said Sue Schulte, spokeswoman for the Kansas Corn Growers Assn. and Kansas Grain Sorghum Producers Assn.

At Marion Co-op Grain and Supply, manager Mike Thomas said corn harvest had just begun in the area. Quality has been good, but bushels are down by about half.

This year, the elevator is testing the grain for stress-related toxins and has found none above tolerable levels, Thomas said.

Farmers bringing their corn to the Marion elevator are reporting yields of about 50 bushels an acre, compared to 100 bushels per acre last year, he said.

Thomas said many acres were doing so poorly because of the drought that they were cut for silage a while ago. He estimated 90 percent of the corn planted in the northern part of the county was chopped up as silage rather than harvested for grain.

This week, Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service rated 54 percent of the corn in poor to very poor condition. Another 35 percent was ranked as fair, while only 11 percent of the crop earned a good or excellent rating.

The agency said that statewide about 41 percent of the corn has reached maturity, with yields varying widely even within the same county.

Southeast Kansas traditionally harvests the first bushels of corn each year.

KASS reported that 88 percent of the corn in that area is now mature. That compares to northwest Kansas, where just 6 percent of the corn crop has matured in those higher elevations.

About 76 percent of the corn in east central Kansas has reached maturity, and 45 percent in southwest Kansas.

Southwest Kansas is usually the state’s biggest corn-producing region, and this year it is among the worst hit by drought.

“They have a lot of irrigated corn acres, and even with irrigation they really are not able to keep up,” Schulte said. “We are seeing quite a bit of decrease in that area.”

Some early sorghum also is being cut, with about 11 percent of the sorghum mature statewide.

KASS rated the sorghum crop as 62 percent in poor to very poor condition, 26 percent fair and 12 percent good to excellent.