photo by: Richard Gwin

Gary Laughlin harvests wheat Monday south of Baldwin City. While his acres are yielding less than he hoped, possibly due to recent rain, other farmers are reporting more optimistic numbers early in the harvest season.

Gary Laughlin began harvesting his wheat crop Sunday night, and overall the yield was not as high as he had hoped.

Tuesday morning Laughlin, who farms 21 acres south of Baldwin City, said his harvest turned out between 35 and 40 bushels of wheat per acre, a low number possibly brought on by recent rainfall.

photo by: Richard Gwin

Gary Laughlin harvests wheat Monday south of Baldwin City. While his acres are yielding less than he hoped, possibly due to recent rain, other farmers are reporting more optimistic numbers early in the harvest season.

“Wheat don’t like rain,” he said. “And we’ve had all kinds of rain.”

Other farmers have turned out larger yields, Laughlin said, but on the whole it may be too early to tell what the harvest season will produce.

“Some of them are claiming they’re making 50, 60 bushels,” he said. “Some of them have been making 80 bushels an acre out west. There haven’t been many people cutting out here. I’m sure others will be making more than I did.”

Mark Easton, manager of the Ottawa Coop’s Overbrook location, said it’s too early in the harvest for solid yield numbers, but the prices per bushel are low.

Currently hard red winter wheat is priced at $3.91 per bushel and soft wheat is priced at $4.18 per bushel, Easton said.

“That’s low,” he said. “Nobody wants four-dollar wheat; they’d like to have a lot more than that.”

As the harvest continues, Easton said he’ll begin to get a better idea of this year’s yields.