Farm Director KC Sheperd is talking with Paul Paplow from Paplow Harvesting and Trucking about wheat harvest in the southern plains.
Paplow Harvesting and Trucking is a full-service harvesting business, Paplow said, that starts harvesting in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Walters, Oklahoma.
“Their ground conditions (in Walters) are a little bit dryer, so they have no trouble moving up there,” Paplow said. “They have got a very nice crop up there. I would say 35-to 40-bushel wheat and all the quality is really good on it also.”
The next stops will include Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and a few locations in Kansas. They finish up harvest in North Dakota, he added.
Wheat conditions around Wichita Falls are good, Paplow said, but looking into Oklahoma and Kansas, conditions worsen.
“Hopefully, we are surprised with what the yields do, but Kansas is going to be a pretty rough year for most farmers there and for harvesters passing through there,” Paplow said.
Paplow said around 25 to 30 percent of wheat fields have been abandoned this year in Kansas due to the drought.
“As of right now, I feel like we are lucky if we maybe lost about 10 to 15 percent of our acres, so we are probably below the average, but there is a lot of abandonment this year,” Paplow said.
Although Oklahoma has received some good rains recently, and the latest crop progress report from USDA showed significant increases in those crop conditions, Paplow said those rains are a little too late.
“I think the winter wheat crop is kind of already set in stone of what it is going to be,” Paplow said.
