After watching the agricultural pendulum swing wildly in recent years, Jason Flory doesn’t mind seeing his production range for fall crops calm down a bit.

This year’s “good, average” production of soybeans and corn, he said, makes for a darn fine fall harvest.

“Last year was the best crop ever – 2004 was a crop that nobody had ever seen before in their lives, even the old timers,” said Flory, a co-owner of May Way Farms Inc., which has fields near Lone Star Lake and outside Eudora. “It’s a crop you’d love to repeat, and our expectations going into this year were set pretty high, but we’re fortunate. Between 2000 and 2004 – in ’01, ’02 and ’03 – we were droughted out every year.

“This is sure a lot better than that.”

Flory’s take: Average never felt more comfortable.

“We’re thankful,” he said. “Now we’re back to a good, strong, average crop.”

Flory is among the area’s farmers who are wrapping up their fall harvests this month, and the production numbers are solid if not spectacular, officials say.

With the area’s soybean harvest about 90 percent complete, yields are averaging about 40 bushels an acre, “which is nothing to be ashamed of around here; that’s a pretty good year,” said Matthew Vanjar, who runs grain operations for the Ottawa Cooperative Assn.

More than 95 percent of the area’s corn has been harvested, he said, and the results are just above average: approaching 110 bushels an acre.

The only real downside to this year’s returns, Vanjar said, comes on the price side – especially for corn. A $1.59 a bushel, the prices are below even year-ago levels, when the country was faced with a supply glut because of a record harvest of 11.8 billion bushels.

Compensation for soybeans this year isn’t as bad, Vanjar said, especially after prices jumped 14 cents Friday for the co-op to $5.48 a bushel. That was up from $4.90 last Veterans Day.

“Everybody’s excited about soybean oil being used for soy diesel (fuel),” Vanjar said. “With the way the energy markets have rallied after the hurricanes, it’s helped bring soybeans up a little bit.”

The co-op – which has elevators in Douglas, Franklin, Coffey, Osage, Shawnee and Johnson counties – still expects to bring in plenty of grain. Vanjar has projected bringing in 4 million bushels of soybeans, down from 4.5 million a year ago; and 5 million bushels of corn, down from 7 million bushels last year.

“It’s an average harvest,” he said.

Fall crops make up the bulk of Douglas County’s agricultural production, said Bill Wood, the county’s agriculture extension agent for K-State Research and Extension. Farmers typically plant 39,000 acres of soybeans and 25,000 acres of corn, while wheat accounts for 7,000 acres and milo goes into 3,000 acres.

The farm economy accounts for more than $30 million in the county, he said, and about $20 million of that comes from row crops such as soybeans, corn and wheat.

Such money makes a difference throughout the Lawrence-area economy.

“Farmers are generally noted for: If they’re making money, they spend money. They don’t hoard it,” Wood said. “And if you spend money in a community, those dollars turn over.”

Back in the fields, Flory figures he still has about two more days of picking to finish up his corn for the year. He’s been focusing on the marketing end of things these days, trying to gauge the market to get the most out of May-Way’s crop.

The price swings, the production ranges, the varying input costs – all weigh on his mind, but he can’t let it worry him too much.

Not with another solid, average year’s work in the bin.

“Most businessmen in town, they’d scratch their heads and wonder: What are you doing?” Flory said, laughing. “You just have to enjoy it, and use your best business practices. There are a lot of good times that come with the bad, but this year, all in all, we’d have to call it a good year.”