By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

A much as two-thirds of Marion County wheat has been harvested, and a lot of farmers are yielding 60 bushels per acre. Truckloads of wheat continue being driven to elevators to wait in line for a chance to unload.

Jeff Naysmith, agronomist for Cooperative Grain and Supply in Hillsboro, said the first truckloads started coming in early last week and the company’s five elevators that take wheat are constantly busy.

This year’s harvest is both abundant and high quality, he said.

“I think there’s a lot of 60-bushel wheat out there,” Naysmith said.

Things are going very quickly, Naysmith said.

“Just as a rough estimate, I’d say we’re getting close to two-thirds done,” he said.

Recent rain delayed the start of harvest, but weather has been kind overall, Naysmith said.

“For once, we had spring in Kansas,” he said. “Some of the places over to the west didn’t get much, but now we’ve had a lot of rain.”

Abundant rains are great for row crops but not so good for having to cut wheat, he said.

Temperatures didn’t turn hot until recently, he observed.

Also, farmers are getting through their fields more quickly than they used to.

“With bigger equipment, it doesn’t take as long as it used to,” he said.

Cooperative Grain takes in wheat from the eastern part of McPherson County to east of Marion but maybe not as far as Elmdale, Naysmith said.

With harvest being so abundant, it is pushing down the cash price, he said.

“The market’s down quite a bit in the last couple of weeks,” he said. “There can be numerous reasons for that. Regionally, the wheat’s been high quality. Test weights have been pretty good.”