Late harvest in varying stages

    With wheat harvest in the final stages in southwest Nebraska, harvest is just beginning to the west in the Chappell area.
    While the harvest is nearing completion in the Dundy-Chase-Perkins County areas, hail-damaged fields are still maturing.
    A survey of local elevators and farmers puts this year’s harvest progress at around 80% complete as of Wednesday.
    The cool, wet conditions in late May and June set the crop back several weeks.
    Fortunately, that delay also provided optimum conditions for the flowering and head-filling periods. That has translated into some exceptional yields.
    Dryland fields have run between 60 bushels per acre up to as high as 105 bu./acre. Most estimate average yield at 85 bu./acre.
    On irrigated fields, where hard white winter wheat is predominantly grown, yields of 110-115 bu./acre were common.
    A spokesman for Frenchman Valley Coop (FVC) said the quality has been good with protein content averaging between 10.5 to 11%.
    Wheat still stands in most fields in western and northwest Nebraska. FVC is just beginning to take in wheat in the Chappell area with some activity in the Sidney area.
    Estimates put harvest in areas from Kimball to Hemingford as much as two weeks out.
    As long as no more hail falls, the crop will eventually get harvested, wheat grower Tom Luhrs of Imperial said.
    He noted some of his fields that got hailed in late May almost fully recovered. However, he said he’s still finding green berries so it could be another one to two weeks before that wheat can be cut.