Wichita ? After watching drought decimate production of their major crops, Kansas farmers have gone back to winter wheat in a big way — planting 10.3 million acres of it during the fall, the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service reported Friday.

The acreage seeded for the 2003 winter wheat crop is up by 7 percent, or 700,000 more acres than planted a year earlier, the agency said.

Winter wheat — which is relatively cheap to plant and takes little moisture to grow — has long been a staple in Kansas, the nation’s biggest wheat producing state, especially during dry years.

But wheat acres have been steadily declining in Kansas since 1996, when the state had 11.4 million acres of wheat in the ground. By 2001, farmers were seeding just 9.6 million acres of wheat as they turned to irrigation and to thirsty crops like corn.

Wheat’s renewed popularity is indicative of the financial difficulties facing farmers struggling to grow a crop in drought conditions, said Brett Myers, executive vice president of the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers.

“The only surprise is that it wasn’t more,” Myers said.

The biggest percentage jumps came in southwest Kansas and north-central Kansas, where farmers planted 13 percent more wheat acres than last year.

“The reason southwest Kansas did plant that was because it was such a dry summer and fall and they had such poor fall crops,” Myers said. “That part of the state is really struggling.”

The same can be said for north-central Kansas.

“They have lost a couple of years’ crops on dryland corn and irrigated stuff,” Myers said. “With wheat they wouldn’t have to use as much water, and wouldn’t have the input costs.”

Nationwide, winter wheat planted for the 2003 crop was estimated at 44.2 million acres, up 6 percent from a year ago. It is the largest area seeded since 1998.

The seedings report was released in conjunction with the latest government accounting of grain stocks, which show Kansas wheat stocks — at 187.3 million bushels — are 30 percent below what they were a year ago.