10 to 130 bu/ac: Kansas Corn Harvest Yields All Over the Board

Dryland corn yields spanning 10 to 40 bushels per acre — with a few lucky spots hitting 130 — sum up a Kansas harvest that refuses to behave. Sherry's crew, chronicling the season for High Plains Journal, got a little corn in the bin before rain shut them down. Twice.

The rhythm of this fall has been brutally simple. Harvest for a few days. Rain. Wait. Harvest again. More rain. The latest interruption comes courtesy of a low-pressure system parked directly overhead, delivering rain around the clock and winds gusting to 45 mph. The crew's camper rocked hard enough that tying it down felt like a reasonable precaution.

The forecast finally improves, but the fields don't. Expect another 3-5 days of sitting before the ground dries enough to roll combines again. Patience, as Sherry puts it, is definitely being tested this fall.

What does the dryland-versus-irrigated split look like?

The numbers tell the drought story plainly. Dryland fields have ranged from 10 to 40 bushels per acre, with scattered areas reaching 130. Every field has its own story this year, and as Sherry notes, you never really know what you'll find until you get into it.

Irrigated circles have performed far better: 130 to 160 bushels per acre on the few the crew has harvested so far. The gap between dryland and irrigated output is doing the talking about this season's moisture, or the lack of it.

What breaks when the weather won't cooperate?

Downtime gets converted into shop work, and this fall has supplied plenty of both. The biggest recurring headache belonged to Wailynn's front tire. Brian and Wailynn booted it twice, and each repair held air for a day or two before failing again. They finally quit negotiating and replaced the tire outright.

Wyatt's feeder house chain also gave out and got swapped. The rest of the equipment has run well, which counts as a minor miracle given the stop-start season. Everyone pitches in on the repairs — many hands make light work, and around this operation there's always something needing attention.

Servicing has its own quirks. Wyatt is allergic to dust, so every machine service means an N95 mask before he touches anything. Wailynn handles blow-off duty on his machine and header while Brian, Wesson and Wyatt work over Wyatt's header.

How is the South Texas cotton turning out?

Back home in South Texas, cotton harvest reports are filtering in. Yields are running 1.5 to 2.25 bales per acre, ginned, with each bale weighing roughly 500 pounds of lint. It's a decent window on how the regional crop is finishing, and a reminder that while one crew waits on Kansas mud, another crop is already moving to the gin.

What should farmers watch next?

For this crew, the watch item is simply the sky: once the 3-5 days of drying pass, corn picking resumes and the remaining acres get their verdict. For everyone else, the dryland numbers here are worth filing away as a benchmark for what moisture stress did to non-irrigated corn this season.

The plan, in Sherry's words, is to make the most of the downtime and be ready to roll the moment Mother Nature gives the green light. That's just part of farming — you work when you can and wait when you have to. This fall has supplied rather more of the second than anyone ordered.