The Kansas Wheat Quality Council’s 2021 winter wheat tour is wrapping up after making it’s way across the state. And the 2021 yield potential is high.
Thursday, teams traveled from Wichita to Manhattan, Kansas checking winter wheat fields and measuring yield potential. The final three day tally coming in just above 58.1 bushels per acre with a tour prediction of 365-million bushels of total production. It’s the highest tour average on record going back to 2000.
Organizers say there’s no doubt, the Kansas crop has potential.
“The take away from the tour this year, being two weeks later, is that we are seeing this crop at its maximum potential right now because I don’t think we’ve ever seen on a tour where the wheat is heading. We have a good handle on what its capabilities are to produce,” says Aaron Harries,VP of Research and Operations for Kansas Wheat. “But we always say everything that can happen between now and harvest, and most of that is bad.”
The biggest challenge until harvest will be the weather. Recent rains in the southern plains lending itself to issues with both rust and head scab.
