Hutchinson ? Despite record prices that haven’t been seen in years, many Kansas wheat farmers aren’t profiting because they don’t have any wheat to sell.

At Tom Bauck’s elevator in Hutchinson, he’s offering $8-per-bushel, but he’s not getting many takers.

“Most don’t have much of a crop to sell,” Bauck said from Hutchinson’s Irsik and Doll elevator, where the price board read $8.28 at close Friday.

Bauck said the June wheat crop was one of the worst in a decade. That’s blamed on drought, an April freeze and too much rain in south-central and southeastern Kansas.

Even in western Kansas, where a long drought broke this year and led to one of the best wheat crops in the region’s history, most farmers won’t get close to $8 a bushel.

“We bought 75 percent of our wheat crop when it was still below $6,” said Dave Erwin, manager of Syracuse Coop Exchange in Hamilton County along the Colorado border. “Five dollars is still a great price for wheat.”

Marsha Boswell, with Kansas Wheat, said the high prices are being caused by a short crop across the world, not just in Kansas.

“Australia is having a low production year, and the European Union is actually having to import some wheat,” she said. “We have low wheat stocks worldwide.”

Tom Giessel, who farms near Larned, said his harvest ranged from a freeze-damaged crop that averaged around 24 bushels an acre to a few fields with 60 bushels an acre.

While he sold a small part of his crop for $7.99 a bushel, “more wheat was sold in this county for under $5.75 than over it.”

Other costs also cut into farmers’ profits.

Doug Stucky, an economist with the Kansas Farm Management Association, said the price of fertilizer has more than doubled in the past five years to $400 a ton. Other costs, such as fuel, irrigation and chemicals, have doubled as well.