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Drought pushing back winter wheat planting for Kansas farmer

A Kansas farmer says drought has delayed his winter wheat planting.

Brian Sieker tells Brownfield he’ll plant the crop this week after receiving some much-needed rainfall.

“This year we had lots of army worms, web worms and grasshoppers. Lots of guys had to spray a lot of their rye and triticale and they planted early,” he says. “So we’ve kind of just been holding off, waiting for a weather change and also waiting on moisture.”

He says more consistent rains are needed to rebuild soil moisture.

“There’s areas in my farm that you’ve got one area that’s a sinkhole. I had never farmed it the first 40 years of my life, and we’ve planted crops on it three years in a row,” he says. “Usually it’s got 8 foot of water in it. That tells you how dry it’s been.”

Sieker says he’s about a week late getting the crop in the ground. He says sorghum harvest is underway and he’s expecting an average yield.