Oklahoma Farmers Face Crop Struggles Ahead Of Wheat Harvest Season

Wheat harvesting season is here and many farmers are struggling with a weak crop.

A lack of rain, especially in the western part of Oklahoma and Texas, has forced farmers to worry about their wheat and grain production.

A lifelong farmer in Okmulgee County said he won't know for sure about his crop until he harvests a couple of fields in the next few days.

“So many people, when they’re young, they’re trying to decide what do I want to do for a living. That thought never crossed my mind. I knew what I wanted to do, and someone asked me the other day about when I was growing up and how I would describe my life. I just said I’m living the dream. I’m living what I love to do and have been able to watch my kids grow up, watching grand kids grow up and I’m very thankful," said Chris Ledbetter, C.V. Ledbetter & Son, Inc.

Chris' dad and mom started farming in the 50s, and now his wife, kids and grandkids have their hand in the business.

“You realize when you’re in this business, everything you do is dependent upon weather. You need sunlight, you need rain. You need a balance of all of that, and so we just realize every day when we get out of bed that we’re thankful. Thankful for the opportunity to be involved with agriculture and be able to make our living doing what we love to do,” said Chris.

Chris said he’s a couple of days out from harvest. His family has hundreds of acres and in years past has averaged about 65 to 85 bushels per acre.

Chris said he’s staying cautiously optimistic about this year's numbers, but said conditions out west are way worse.

“We just were blessed with additional moisture over here. Now we haven’t had an extremely wet spring, but we had enough moisture to produce a crop. Those folks out there just simply couldn’t get a rain. That’s what happened and of course now it’s harvest time. Well, it’s too late but they’re getting the moisture now so it’s delaying them from harvest,” said Chris.

His wheat crop in Okmulgee still shows enough green to hold off a little longer.

"We’ve still got just enough green heads around and a little bit of green left in the straw that we need two or three more good days. Possibly the end of the week we May start," said Chris. “Even though the heads turning over we’re just very close to harvest, but we’re just a few days away from it cutting good."

Chris said you can harvest with a little green, but it makes the process tougher to complete.

OSU and WestBred have plots on his land to determine what new varieties and things they release to be grown.

“We’re in the seed wheat business. We grow soft red winter wheat, and we grow hard red winter wheat. And so when we harvest this, it will go to the bin and then of course it has to meet certain specifications. Crop improvement comes out, walks the field, verifies that everything’s the way it’s supposed to be carried wise. That it’s clean, doesn’t have noxious weed seed and things and then we’ll go through a process of cleaning the seed later on this summer to get it prepared for fall planting, which would begin typically the first part of October,” said Chris.

Last month, the USDA came out with the results of two surveys conducted by the Southern Plains Regional Field Office.

Data reports show wheat production for Oklahoma is forecast at 49.5 million bushels, which is a 28 percent decrease compared to last year.

It said the state is expected to average 23 bushels per acre, which is down five bushels from the previous year. The number of acres expected to be harvested for grain, 2.15 million, was down by 12 percent.

“It’s not just what happens here in the southern plains of Texas and Oklahoma. It’s worldwide and there seems to be enough grain in the other parts of the world to kind of help offset that, so up to this point we have not seen a drastic run up in prices," said Chris.

But Chris said the cost of production is very high.

“When you go get parts, you know fuels been expensive, fertilizer, seed. Everything you’ve had to buy has really escalated in the past 2-3 years,” said Chris. “Are there tough times? Sure, but there’s tough times in life in everything. But the blessings far outweigh the tough part.”

Chris said if they get moisture after harvesting wheat, they’ll come in and plant soybeans in the wheat stubble behind the combine for this fall.

Next year the farm would rotate back to corn, so they get three crops in two years. He said corn is in the process of getting ready to silk and tassel in a couple of weeks, and that the moisture would benefit that crop.