Custom cutters hurt by low wheat yields

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Producers aren’t the only ones hurting from low yields this year.  This article, out of Wichita, Kansas, describes the low crop’s effect on custom harvesters.

— From the Rick Plumlee, The Wichita Eagle

As custom wheat harvesters move into the southern edge of Kansas this week, they are feeling a financial pinch. Most have lost 20 to 25 percent of their work after drought and freezes wiped out much of the wheat crop in Oklahoma and Texas.

“You lose out on the first month of cutting and you never get that back,” said Ray Froese, an Inman resident who has been a custom harvester with his brother, Larry, for more than 30 years.

Custom harvesters’ traditional pattern of starting deep in Texas and working their way north as the wheat ripens was disrupted to a greater extent than veteran cutters can ever remember.

For Larry Schroeder, who is also from Inman and has been a custom harvester for more than 20 years, this is the first time he hasn’t even unloaded a combine in Texas or Oklahoma.

“Some are cutting down there,” he said, “but you would be better off staying home.”

Especially when yields were ranging from five to 20 bushels an acre in Texas and southern Oklahoma.

Drought hammered much of Texas, leaving the state with a projected yield of 64.8 million bushels — less than two-thirds of the 2008 crop. A freeze took out more than half of Oklahoma’s wheat.

So most harvesters didn’t even attempt to start in Texas and work through Oklahoma.

“It didn’t make sense to load up equipment and go where there is no wheat,” said Pam Shmidl, operations manager of Hutchinson-based U.S. Custom Harvesters, an association of professional harvesters.

Even cutting some fields where there is wheat doesn’t bring harvesters the same paycheck.

While farmers can purchase crop insurance to help offset losses from low yields, custom cutters are on their own.

Custom harvesters are paid based on three areas: acres cut, the yield and number of bushels hauled to the elevators, Froese said.

He said they receive the same pay for yields up to 20 bushels per acre. The rate increases by about 21 cents a bushel for yields over 20 bushels — commonly called overages — because a combine has to slow down to get the extra wheat.

“We don’t have insurance to make up the difference with low yields,” Froese said. “We’re just out of luck.”

That’s not to say Froese and other harvesters completely bypassed all of their regular Texas customers. But the service came at a price.

To satisfy the insurance adjusters who wanted to verify the yield, Froese cut some fields near Wichita Falls, Texas. The yield was only five to 12 bushels an acre.

This week, Froese joined his brother Larry in cutting wheat in the upper Texas panhandle, near Stratford.

“There’s higher elevation around Stratford,” Froese said, “so it comes off at about the same time as Kansas.

“The wheat isn’t as good as Kansas. It’s one rainfall short of 40-bushel wheat. We’re cutting a lot of 20 bushels here.”

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