Kansas Winter Wheat Harvest Getting Slow Start

The winter wheat harvest is off to a slow, tentative start in south-central Kansas.

Steve Inslee, general manager at the OK Co-op in Kiowa, said Thursday that local farmers have cut a few acres and the grain elevator has taken a couple of loads of wheat. He doesn’t look for the area’s harvest to begin in earnest until Sunday or Monday.

Inslee expects the elevator to take in just 1 million bushels this season because of the drought. That would be one-third of what it received last year.

The industry group Kansas Wheat says it knows of no other harvest activity besides Kiowa.

Group spokesman Bill Spiegel says the Kansas harvest was about 70 percent complete at this time last year.