Fall row crops look good across state

Across the Kansas countryside, soybeans have set pods. Corn has silked. And the sorghum fields have begun to turn color.

With harvest just weeks away, nature’s signs point to a bountiful harvest come fall. And the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service agrees.

The service on Monday rated corn condition as 13 percent excellent and 58 percent good, with 21 percent rated fair. Just 8 percent was rated at either poor or very poor.

If those estimates hold up and the corn harvest turns out to be as good as expected, Kansas farmers likely will bring in more than 400 million bushels of corn this year.

Soybean condition was rated as 12 percent excellent, 56 percent good, 27 percent fair, 4 percent poor and 1 percent very poor.

Earlier this month, the service revised its Kansas wheat production forecast downward to 300.8 million bushels from 9.4 million harvested acres. Nearly a million acres of wheat were abandoned because of late freezes, insects and disease.