By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post

With the 2015 wheat harvest coming to an end across the state of Kansas, it appears this year’s Ellis County crop was on par with the rest of the state.

Ellis County Extension Agent Stacy Campbell estimated the average yields in Ellis County to be between 35 and 40 bushels per acres. On Monday, the Kansas Wheat Commission reported a statewide average of 38 bushels per acre.

Campbell said even with some of the winter kill and disease that affected a portion of this year’s crop, it was still about average.

“Considering how dry it was in the spring, I think most people are pretty excited with that,” Campbell said.

He added that the rains in May really help to improve the conditions. But also led to some diseases, primarily stripe rust and some leaf rust.

“Even though we ended up overall, I think, with a pretty good wheat crop” Campbell said. “I think that stripe rust and leaf rust did probably take a few bushels from us as well.”

Test weights, according to Campbell were pretty good as well. He said there was some winter kill and disease that hurt some wheat but overall he estimated test weights to be between 58 and 62 pound per bushel.

Campbell said they did see an increase in winter kill in this year’s crop and said they attribute part of that to the warm temperatures in November followed by a cold-snap in a matter of 24 hours.

Harvest was wrapped up in Ellis County by about July 1, but Campbell said as of the end of last week there were some people still trying to get wrapped up.

Earlier this month. the National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast the Kansas 2015 winter wheat crop at 334 million bushels, up 36 percent from last year’s crop.