Wichita ? Government statisticians have raised their projections for this year’s Kansas winter wheat crop as the ongoing harvest brings in near record yields.

Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service forecast on Friday that the state will cut 369 million bushels from the winter wheat crop. That is up 5 percent from last month’s forecast.

The new forecast is down less than 1 percent from last year’s crop because Kansas farmers are cutting just 8.2 million acres — about 600,000 fewer acres than last season.

Yields are expected to average about 45 bushels an acre. That would be the highest yield since 2003 and the fifth highest yield on record.