MANHATTAN, Kan. – The picture is taking shape for this year’s Kansas wheat crop, and in some areas, it’s not pretty.

Participants on the Wheat Quality Council’s annual tour through Kansas fields estimated this year’s crop at 277.6 million bushels, with an average yield of 32.7 bushels per acre. That compared with last year’s tour estimate of 41.4 bushels per acre.

Actual Kansas wheat production last year totaled 348 million bushels with an average yield of 37 bushels per acre.

Drought conditions last fall delayed planting and impaired development of the crop, particularly in western Kansas, leading to speculation that more acres than usual will be abandoned this year.

Kansas State University agronomist and tour participant Jim Shroyer, said that while there were pockets of good wheat, especially in south central Kansas, many fields in western Kansas were in poor shape.

"I don’t want to give the impression that whole fields in western Kansas were brown," he said. "Most of the brown areas were at the ends of the fields where tractors turn and the soil tends to dry out faster. But if we don’t get rain in the next week or couple of weeks, whole fields could turn brown."

"Regarding the 277.6 million figure – that’s a pretty good number for now. However, personally, I’m less optimistic than that. That 10 days prior to the tour really scared me. That was a rude awakening to what could potentially happen here in May," he said, referring to 90-degree temperatures and windy days in late April. Shroyer is a crop production specialist with K-State Research and Extension.

"If we have below normal temperatures and timely moisture, that [277.6 million bushel] figure could be a smidgen low, but I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance that we’ll hit 300 [million bushels]," he said.

The big question now is how many producers will actually abandon their fields, Shroyer said. He expects at least one million acres to be abandoned, and as high as 1.5 million.

"A lot of producers are postponing that decision as long as they can, and a lot of decisions will be made in the next two weeks, depending on moisture," Shroyer added, noting that even in good-looking wheat fields in central Kansas, topsoil was dry two to four inches down.

Early May brought cooler temperatures and forecasts for rain to the state, but if the high winds and temperatures return, Shroyer said the 1.5-million-acre abandonment scenario might be realistic. If it stays cooler with some rain, the number will be closer to the 1 million figure, he said.

Numerous factors must be taken into account as producers decide whether to abandon their fields. Insurance issues, whether a farmer has a corn planter and header, whether a farmer wants to try sunflowers, whether a farmer had already put on a residual wheat herbicide that would affect a subsequent crop – such factors and plenty of others go into a grower’s decision whether or not to stay with a marginal wheat field or to plant it in something else, he said.

"The other issue is that ... crop adjusters are so busy that they can’t get around to make all the adjustments in a timely manner," Shroyer said. That’s causing a problem for some growers who are eager to kill off their remaining wheat and plant to a row crop instead.

Based on weekly crop condition data distributed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as of April 28, K-State Extension crops marketing specialist Bill Tierney has estimated that 13.1 percent of planted acres in Kansas will be abandoned. That would result in harvested acres of 8.6 million, which would be 800,000 less than last year and the smallest number since 1957.

Tierney’s Kansas wheat crop condition index based on conditions as of April 28, was 280 – unchanged from the previous week but well below the 15-year average of 347.