Kansas may be the Wheat State, but Douglas County is anything but.

Area farmers plant only a third as much wheat today as they did six years ago, as farmers increasingly turn to soybeans and corn in search of a more promising return on investment.

It’s easy to see why, said Bill Wood, the county’s extension agent for agriculture with K-State Research and Extension. Area farmers often earn less from the wheat they grow than the straw that gets left behind, to be baled up and sold for use in animal pens or as display shelves for grocery store pumpkins.

Depending on the outlet, he said, farmers can weave anywhere from $80 to $120 per acre from their straw supplies.

“It’s not a wheat county,” Wood said. “The guys who grow wheat … if they can hope to break even on the grain part of the crop, then the straw’s the profit.”

Socked by drought, low prices and other market pressures, area farmers have found themselves searching for ways to make ends meet as warm weather approaches. And that means value-added farming and niche marketing have become more than mere buzzwords.

A look at the numbers confirms what has become an all-too-familiar refrain in the ag community: Times are tough.

“A farm is just like any other small business,” said Wood, who works with area farmers. “They’re independent, they have to make enough to pay the notes; and they have to make enough to make a living for their families.”

Even as he awaited final numbers last month, Wood knew that 2002 would enter the books on a down note. A pervasive drought during prime growing months drained all hope of a successful harvest for the county’s two biggest crops — soybeans and corn — and left little, if any, financial cushion for farmers to lean on going into 2003.

In February, Ron Rice, a Douglas County farmer, inspects the condition of his wheat field south of Clinton Lake. Area farmers are hoping for a wet spring after drought-like conditions through most of 2002.

Dwindling returns

“When a farmer has only two-thirds of his product to sell, it’s just like a restaurant,” Wood said. “If activity drops off and they only do two-thirds of production, they’ll have to lay off employees and keep costs down.

“It’s just like that with a farmer. The government helps with some payments, but they still have to make a living. One thing’s price, and one thing’s production. If either of those drops, it hurts you. But if both of those drop, it’s a double whammy.”

Al Pendleton, who’s been farming in Douglas County for about 50 years, said he would continue to plant, nurture and harvest corn and soybeans on his 160 acres southeast of town.

But given the ongoing challenges, he wouldn’t mind giving way to a development of his land.

“You’re not going to farm it and get much of a return,” Pendleton said.

This year’s conditions don’t yield much hope for a bumper crop of soybeans, corn or wheat in the county, Wood said.

Lawrence farmer Jim Springer rolls over brome hay in a field south of Hallmark Cards, 101 McDonald Drive. Springer planned to use the hay to feed his cattle.

“Pray for rain,” he said.

Moisture in the soil typically reaches only 5 inches deep on area farms, Wood said, leaving budding wheat susceptible to a few sunny, breezy 70- or 80-degree days.

“They’ll run out of moisture in the dirt,” Wood said, “and then there’s nowhere to go but die.”

With so little moisture in the ground, Wood said many farmers would be hard-pressed even to consider planting corn this month, much less actually dropping seeds into the parched earth.

‘Praying for rain’

And corn isn’t a small crop in the area. In 2001, farmers planted 26,000 acres of corn — ranking behind the 39,700 acres of soybeans, but far outpacing the 5,800 acres of wheat planted last year.

“I’ve been praying for rain,” Wood said. “We’re hoping it starts raining, and in April it gets rainier. If we don’t see that, these farmers are going to get back into a critical point in their operations.”

Last year, Wood figures, county farmers probably harvested an average of 60 to 65 bushels of corn per acre, nearly half the six-year average of 108 bushels an acre. Wood’s own extension plot, south of Eudora, averaged about 51 bushels an acre.

Soybeans fared even worse. Wood estimates that area farmers brought in only 15 bushels an acre, on average. That would be about the same as the dismal production of 2000, when drought sapped the beans and left farmers gasping for relief.

“Last July, August and early September — when beans are flowering, podding, trying to put beans in the pods — we just had no stinkin’ moisture,” Wood said. “Some of our soybeans weren’t even worth going out to harvest.

“The best I heard on soybeans was 35 bushels an acre, and that was river bottom; maybe they caught a shower or two at the right time. Then I heard of some upland. They had five or 10 bushels. And that hurts.”

The county’s test plot produced an average of 21 bushels an acre.

Such results are far from encouraging, and their effects reach well beyond the fields outside of town.

“The farming community not only affects farmers,” Wood said. “It affects banks. It affects doctors. They spend money in town. In general, Douglas County produces about $30 million worth of products to sell, and most of these products end up going outside the county.

“That’s $30 million coming to our farmers in the county to spend. If we can’t grow anything, we can’t spend anything. And that’s a big loss to the county.”