(AP) — The emerging 2012 winter wheat crop appears to be getting off to a solid start in Kansas after a year of drought that decimated many other crops.

Hundreds of thousands more acres than usual of tender shoots of wheat are now emerging beneath dead stalks of failed corn and soybean crops.

Just how much more winter wheat was planted this fall probably won’t be known until the government releases its official estimate in January. Experts say the state is going to have a significant increase over the 8.7 million acres of wheat seeded last year.

Aaron Harries, director of marketing for the group Kansas Wheat, says widespread rain from a few weeks ago has helped get a lot of the wheat fields up and established.