Kansas wheat crop a testament to hardiness 

Kansas State University Assistant Professor and Southwest Area Agronomist Logan Simon joked he wasn’t quite sure what would kill the 2026 wheat crop in the state first. 

“Whether it be the freeze injury, drought, of course (that) has been the overarching theme, and then we also had a couple of insect pests that did cause some, some pretty significant yield losses in some cases,” he said. 

As of mid-June, Simon was seeing wheat harvest east of Dodge City moving along; however, recent rains have slowed progress.   

“But now that we’ve had these warm temperatures, folks are getting back out in the field,” he said. “As I’m driving out and about today (June 12), I see quite a few people out in the field getting going.” 

West of Dodge City isn’t quite the same case. There’s more harvest activity happening to the south and near the Oklahoma border. But it’s picking up, according to Simon.  

“Some fields have a little bit of green in them, and so it’s slowed things down, but we’re moving,” he said. “By and large, it’s been interesting. The wheat condition is better over here, where we have more fallow wheat.” 

The continuous wheat in central Kansas had different conditions than the fallow counterparts and didn’t have the moisture in the soil profile. Yields and test weights have shown the differences. 

“We see a lot of 30s; they’ll be some end up pulling 40 and 50, but there will also be plenty of 10s as we go,” Simon said about the bushels per acre. “I think that I’m concerned that we’re going to have a lot of low test weights, just given that we finished this year.” 

It’s been a mixed bag, and he’s seen some come in the 54-to-58-pound range.  

“I think we’ve moved with wheat harvest a lot slower than we expected to be by now, given how early everything was, but we creep along,” he said. “I think that there’s a lack of enthusiasm, not because it’s not what we knew was coming, but because it’s what we knew was coming.” 

So far, he hasn’t had any confirmation or reports saying there were more bushels out there than they thought. 

With the recent rains and powerful storms in some areas with strong wind, Simon said the crop that’s gotten rained on needs to be observed. 

“If you see a lot of black dust coming out the back of the combine, that’s probably a sooty black mold,” he said. “It just grows on the chaff if we get a lot of humidity and, and moisture from these, from these rains, especially that laid the wheat down, because then it just really traps that moisture there.” 

Another thing to be mindful of, especially if keeping seed wheat, is a disease called black point that can affect the kernels.  

“Black point is going to affect the embryo as it’s developed in there, and what it really can do on your seed wheat acres is reduce the viability of that wheat and we may see lower than expected germination rates off that wheat,” he said. “If it’s had that moisture and had the chance for that black point pathogen to develop in the kernels.” 

He said if the wheat did get laid down by wind, heat can help dry the chaff out before these two diseases can do harm. 

There are some insects that farmers need to watch. Simon said the brown wheat mite caught some farmers off guard. 

“Brown wheat mites showed up early and were very present out there, especially across southwest Kansas,” he said. “And what happened, and I think resulted in a lot of people maybe missing it at first, is that the damage caused by brown wheat mites resembles drought, and so for many of us we looked at that wheat and said, ah, dang, you know, we’re drier than we thought.” 

Simon encourages producers to get out in the fields and take notes.  

“It likely was an overarching factor, but it was made worse for some by the presence of brown wheat mite, and then, of course, you’ve got your wheat curl mite that spreads the wheat streak mosaic virus complex, and it wasn’t nearly as active,” he said. That complex was not nearly as active in 2026 as it was in 2025, but it was still out there.” 

Simon said there was a lot of wheat affected by the triticum mosaic virus component of the wheat streak mosaic virus complex. 

“(It) looks a lot like wheat streak. The symptoms are very much the same, but we have a lot of varieties out there that we grow specifically for their resistance gene for the wheat streak mosaic virus,” he said. “Unfortunately, it does not convey resistance to the triticum mosaic virus, and so we did see that show up in some cases across the state.” 

Simon’s hoping the weather will cooperate for wheat harvest to wrap up and is optimistic. 

“Hopefully, for many of us, we are going to find ourselves in a really good open period with warm, dry temperatures to get this wheat crop out, and then, of course, let it rain for the summer crops,” he said. “But ideally, hopefully, for all of us, we hope for a quick harvest.” 

Prolonged wet conditions will continue to degrade test weights as after the kernel reaches maturity, every time it gets rained on it soaks up the moisture. 

“It will never shrink back down to the same density that it was, and so you get lighter and lighter kernels, dragging your test weight down even further,” he said. “When we get these rains and we sit wet for a period of time, those diseases can show up. I really encourage folks that have seed wheat to be especially mindful of black points that can degrade your germ and try to get those acres out first, for sure.” 

Some weeds have popped up in unharvested fields and most residual herbicides have already started to break down. 

“(There are) quite a few fields with a significant amount of marestail growing up in them, and that’s a concern, because that’s a lot of green tough material that will also have to go through the combine,” he said. “For folks that do find themselves in situations of having green weeds growing up in that wheat, we may consider a pre-harvest application of something, but we do have several options out there that are safe for application over the top of wheat with a short window pre-harvest, get those weeds burned down, at least not back long enough to get the lead out before we go in with a, with a full burn down.” 

Production numbers

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in its production forecast report released June 11 said winter wheat production is down 2% from the May forecast and down 27% from 2025. The USDA forecast is at 1.03 billion bushels. 

As of June 1, the United States yield is forecast at 46.8 bushels per acre, down 0.8 bushel from last month and down 8.1 bushels from last year’s average yield of 54.9 bushels per acre. Hard red winter production, at 497 million bushels, is down 3% from last month. Soft red winter, at 300 million bushels, is down less than 1% from the May forecast. White winter, at 233 million bushels, is up less than 1% from last month. Of the white winter production, 7.8 million bushels are hard white and 225 million bushels are soft white. 

Although Simon primarily focuses on the agronomic side of the wheat crop, forecasts like this for production are a place to analyze what’s going on in the fields as well as economic decisions that have to be made.  

“Wheat acres are down, and it’s all related to economics. We’ve got to be making decisions based on what can actually bring some revenue back to the farm,” he said. “With wheat prices the way that they’ve been, we’ve seen a lot more folks shifted out of wheat and spending more time in the row crops.” 

Corn and soybeans can be pretty lucrative— if conditions are right—and economics allow. 

“Honestly, spending more time in the row crop phase, not getting back to wheat again, just because of the input costs,” he said. “The fallow wheat acre is expensive. Fallow is a big investment into a wheat crop that may not bring us much, and so it’s been hard to pencil that out economically recently.” 

Economics drive production agriculture, and Simon sees it as a point to make critical decisions.  

“The economics of it drives things, and I’m all in favor of both economically and economically diversification,” he said. “Wheat still plays a very important role in our cropping systems in Kansas, but we’ve got to pencil that out as well. We’ve got to make that economics work out.” 

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].