The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects this year’s Kansas winter wheat crop to drop 35 percent from last year.

The department on Friday said Kansas winter wheat farmers are expected to bring in 304 million bushels this year. Last year, farmers produced 467 million bushels of winter wheat last year.

Dan O’Brien, an agriculture economist at Kansas State University, says disease and unseasonable weather contributed to the drop in production. But he says farmers also planted less wheat this year.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports O’Brien says wheat prices have fallen annually for several seasons, so farmers planted less wheat this year to avoid taking a loss. Last year, wheat was grown on 8.2 million acres of Kansas farmland, but this year’s acreage is under 7 million.

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Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com.