Water Damage Restoration in Leoti, KS

At 17, Jagger Borth doesn’t have a lot of wheat crops under his belt.

Yet even for a young farmer, the 2016 milestone he and his family reached on their farm north of Plains is one he won’t forget.

Sometimes the weather, good management and genetics align in the crop field. And as his father, John, told him, in western Kansas, it doesn’t always work that way.

In June, the family harvested their best wheat crop ever on both dryland and irrigated fields, said Jagger. In fact, his plot of irrigated winter wheat was the top yielding in the nation.

The National Wheat Foundation announced winners of its inaugural 2016 National Wheat Yield Contest earlier this month. Jagger’s winning variety, WestBred’s Grainfield, achieved a yield of 133.64 bushels an acre – 377.29 percent above the county average.

“This year was so exceptional for wheat,” said Jagger, a senior at Meade High School and the son of John and Ginger Borth. “A lot of the farmers in our area produced above-average wheat. We had an exceptional growing season and cool weather during the grain-fill period. That was what pushed everything over the top this year.”

Good yields all around

It’s unheard of – especially in this part of the High Plains, where drought has prevailed for several years.

The elements were perfect to produce a wheat crop of almost monstrous size across not only the Borth farm, but in many parts of Kansas.

Another winner from Kansas was Rick Horton, Leoti, who had the contest’s top-yielding dryland winter wheat plot, which yielded 127.94 bushels an acre – or 373.85 percent above the county average. The seed grower had planted the winning plot with Joe, a white wheat from the Kansas Wheat Alliance.

“We knew 100-bushel dryland wheat was possible,” said Horton, who has Horton Seed Services. “But we needed a good wheat year.”

Across Kansas, bins were bursting with wheat. All told, Kansas farmers saw a record-high average yield of 57 bushels an acre, up 20 bushels from the previous year. Moreover, this fall, the National Agricultural Statistics Service estimated the Kansas wheat crop at 467 million bushels – up 45 percent from last year and the largest in 13 years.

That makes 2016 the fifth largest crop in regard to production. According to records going back to 1866, the only years that Kansas produced more wheat were in 1990, 1997, 1998 and 2003.

Farmers are also doing it on fewer acres. Planted acreage totaled 8.5 million, down 8 percent from 2015 and the third smallest acreage in wheat going back to 1918.

John Borth said on average, he is happy if he sees his dryland fields yielding in the 50- to 60-bushel range, and with optimum weather pushing the 80-plus bushels an acre.

On irrigated, “We try to push it a little higher,” he said.

This year was definitely exceptional. The farm average between irrigated and dryland was around 103 bushels an acre.

“I think everyone had great wheat around here and across Kansas, and I am sure lots of farmers had bin-busting yields,” John said.

He even got his 95-year-old uncle on the combine in June so he could prove to him the dryland yields on his uncle’s land he farms were that outstanding.

“I showed him the yield monitor – bumping around 103 – and his eyes just got big,” said John.

His uncle said he would have never believed it if he hadn’t seen it from the combine. In all his years of farming, he had never cut dryland wheat that good.

Miracle Joe

Horton farms with his dad and two brothers in Wichita, Kearny and Finney counties. They have

Horton Seed Services

, which has offered certified seed sales, customized portable seed treating using the latest technology and certified seed cleaning for about 11 years.

Joe – the variety through the Kansas Wheat Alliance – became available as a foundation seed last year, and Horton planted what little seed he could get his hands on – which he drilled across 33 acres.

The new white wheat variety proved to be a winner across the region, including for the Hortons. The 33 acres had an average yield of 118 bushels an acre, but two acres of that – which Horton entered in the contest – hit 127.94 bushels an acre.

Moreover, said Horton, Joe has very good resistance to the three problem diseases in western Kansas: wheat streak mosaic virus, stripe rust and leaf rust. Joe also carries the WSM2 gene for wheat streak mosaic virus resistance.

With more seed available this fall, Horton said he was able to sow 700 acres to Joe.

Genetics contributes to the bin-buster yields, said Horton. So does the weather.

Also he said, “Management has a huge role in increasing wheat yields. Up until this year, our previous record was 92 bushels to the acre with Tam 112.”

Horton said there might be higher dryland yields in Kansas that no one knows about. He estimated the family farm averaged around 94 bushels an acre. That factors in 640 acres impacted by hail damage.

“We were on pace to average over 100 until we hit the hail-damaged wheat,” he said. “I still have a goal to look forward to.”

Rained-on wheat still hits the high mark

John Borth said he keeps son Jagger – who is not named after the wheat variety – involved in the management of their wheat fields. That included Jagger’s help in selecting two fields for the contest.

The field John planned to enter – while still in the 120s – didn’t yield high enough to be competitive, John said. However, the field Jagger planned to enter showed extreme promise – with the yield monitor showing 105 to 147 bushels an acre.

They left what they figured was the best five-acre plot uncut and called their extension agent. But before she could come out and monitor the plot’s harvest, it rained twice, and “we were fighting the mud to get back in to harvest it,” John Borth said.

“It was probably two weeks later and so much of it had gone down and shattered out,” said John. “And we had lost a lot of our test weight.”

The crop still yielded 133 bushels an acre, and Jagger decided to enter it.

“I didn’t think it was a record,” said Borth, but the way the contest is tabulated, which includes figuring in the county average, the yield bested wheat farmers from across the nation.

“I was really surprised when I found out,” said Jagger.

“We were really pleased this year how everything turned out yield-wise,” Jagger said, but added, “Maybe not so with the price.”

But Jagger doesn’t let the downed farm economy discourage him. He recently applied to go to Kansas State University, where he plans to major in agronomy. A fifth-generation farmer, he said after college he wants to come back to the farm and help manage it alongside his dad.

“I’ve been riding around with him as long as I can remember,” Jagger said, adding, “He’s a good teacher. I’ve learned a lot from him.”

Borth said Jagger is always asking questions and wants to know more. One thing he has been trying to teach him is there are no guarantees in farming.

“It is so unpredictable every year,” said Borth. “You could make all the right management decisions again, and only get 50 percent of the weather right in those wheat fields and the yields would not turn out as high as they did.”