WATONGA - Blaine County farmers are nearing the completion of a successful wheat harvest, local experts said this week, with good yields and test weights as well as higher prices than in recent years.
The harvest began earlier this month and is expected to wrap up locally in early July.
“Quality’s been decent,” said Steve Coney of local industry giant Wheeler Brothers Grain. “Yields have been surprising. We’re going to have a good yielding crop. Test weights are good, you know, 60-plus, so we’re having a good harvest. Prices are up from previous years, so we’re going to have a good harvest.”
Wheat prices were sitting at $5.83 as of Tuesday.
Coney explained that the two hard freezes Oklahoma endured over the winter didn’t really affect this year’s wheat crop. “The stage of growth of the wheat crop wasn’t far enough along to where it did a lot of damage,” Coney said. “One of the main things that helped the crop was the fact that, once we got into late April and early May, we had some cool temperatures.
“That promotes good wheat filling,” he said. “So as far as filling the crop, filling the head and making a good crop, that helps out a bunch with that.”
Becky Bedwell, the Oklahoma State University Extension director for Blaine County, said this year’s harvest began a bit later than normal. “We should be kind of winding up by now, and we’re just getting started,” she said last Wednesday. “It was too wet, and the wheat wasn’t ripe just because of how the weather’s been. We got lots of moisture, which, we hate to complain about moisture, but when you want to cut wheat, you want to cut wheat.
“But yields have been really good,” she agreed. “Test weights have been good, considering that we had a late freeze and with everything that’s going on. The harvest seems to be really good.”