Wichita ? Last year’s bountiful harvest in Kansas did not necessarily put more money in farmers’ pockets.

Despite record or near-record fall production, lower grain prices dropped the value of the state’s 2009 crops about 3 percent from the previous year, the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday.

“These things are going to meander up and down as prices and yields move around. It is not something I see as a major drop,” said Ted Schroeder, agricultural economist at Kansas State University. “The volatility in markets alone can quickly swing that.”

The agency pegged the total Kansas 2009 crop value at $6.9 billion, down from $7.08 billion a year earlier.

Average prices were down dramatically for wheat, and lower for other major Kansas crops like corn, soybeans and hay. The only crop to post a slight increase in overall value was sorghum.

“These farmers in general made pretty good money last year — ’08 was probably a record year for many of them in terms of gross return, net return — and ’09 will go down as another good year, though not as lucrative as the previous for most producers,” Schroeder said.

The value of the 2009 Kansas corn crop was estimated at $2.15 billion, knocking out even winter wheat as the state’s top money maker. But like most other grains, corn prices tumbled — from an average $4.12 to $3.60 per bushel between 2008 and 2009, KASS reported.

It is not unusual for corn to surpass wheat crops certain years in Kansas, depending on total production and prices in any given year, Schroeder said. Corn yields on irrigated ground are typically three times or more as high as wheat production.

Last year the price fall was even more precipitous for the state’s wheat crop — with wheat prices falling from an average $6.94 a bushel in 2008 to $4.85 a bushel in 2009. That pushed the state’s signature crop of winter wheat to second with an estimated value of $1.79 billion.

Running closely behind was the Kansas soybean crop with a value of $1.48 billion, the agency reported. Soybean prices were averaging $9.25 a bushel last year.

The exception in 2008 was posted by the state’s sorghum crop at $716.2 million, up from $673.8 million a year earlier amid slightly higher prices for that grain.