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Local News
Wheat crop said to be strong
July 24, 2008 at 6:49 am
By KARLYN BYERS
Farmers in Union County have just about completed harvesting their wheat crops, and overall, the harvest has gone well, according to those responding to recent Journal-Tribune inquiries.
John Hixson, Union County Agriculture Education, Natural Resources and Community Development Extension Agent, said Friday the wheat harvest is about 98 percent completed.
Hixson said rain interruptions caused some decreased quality in a few instances, “but most yields were above average.”
Millcreek Township farmer Dan Bouic said yields on the 400 acres of wheat he and his dad, Walter, harvested were “higher than expected.”
But while wheat commodity prices are higher than they’ve been in the past, he said, they are starting to decline, as well as soybean and corn prices.
“All three commodities have declining prices, but they’ve been high for awhile and it’s time for a (market) correction,” Dan Bouic said.
The two men “double-cropped” roughly 150 wheat acres to soybeans, Dan Bouic said, which means they planted soybeans into the ground vacated by the wheat. Since some farmers had to replant soybean acres drowned by June’s rainfall, the double-cropped beans shouldn’t be all that far behind recently replanted soybeans.
A 1994 Fairbanks High School graduate who graduated from Ohio State University in 1998, Dan Bouic and his dad farm about 3,000 acres in Millcreek and Leesburg townships in Union County and Scioto Township in Delaware County. He and his dad have been farming together four or five years.
Darby Township farmer Larry Nicol was mowing weeds when he was contacted by the Journal-Tribune. He said his 2008 wheat crop was about average — with the possible exception of one field that yielded a little better than normal.
A 1973 FHS grad, the fourth-generation farmer said he planted 18 of his 500 acres to wheat and baled the stubble to provide straw for the replacement heifers and steers he raises.
Dover Township farmer Gary McDowell also was baling straw from his wheat stubble. The third-generation farmer will use between 1,500 and 2,000 bales to bed hogs and also sell some.
He said his wheat crop was “pretty good.”
“I think we’re going to be in the 60s somewhere, and for us, that’s not bad wheat,” McDowell said, adding that a good wheat yield in Union County is between 70 and 80 bushels an acre.
McDowell farms “just shy” of 1,000 acres with his dad, Lloyd McDowell, along with daughter, Erica, and son-in-law, Dan Karcher.
Gary Lee farms with his sons Ryan and Greg Lee as Lee Farms. He said the men harvested 260 acres of wheat this wet, difficult year.
“The wheat crop was a little above average for central Union County ... and given the wet, cool conditions we had for the wheat growing season, I guess I feel fortunate the yields were that good,” said Lee.
Lee Farms raises field crops primarily in Paris and Dover townships. Gary Lee, who has been farming “at least 40 years,” said his sons are the sixth generation of farmers to till the land.
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