Harvest USA Report

How about a quick update from High Plains Harvesting... The crew has been very busy prepping equipment and preparing to head south very soon. "As we head into our 15th season as owners, the wheat run is looking challenging to say the least. Perhaps the most challenging to date. Drought and late season freezes have stressed or taken out the crop across a large swath of southern run. Nevertheless, we look to make the best of what is left and we'll be ready to hit the ground running."   BT Harvesting is rolling out as well, and Friesen Harvesting. For them, the 2026 season has started.   Russell's Custom Harvesting wrote that Eric and Zach found a campground in Oklahoma and crossed the border every day to cut wheat. Camper parking is a scarce commodity. They did get their first load into the elevator today.   For MJB Harvesting, the 2026 season is officially underway with cutting around Haskell, Texas. "Definitely a very bleak beginning this year, but we will continue to look forward and be hopeful for what is to come."   And for Frederick Harvesting, the first three combines are headed south to Altus, Oklahoma.    In Kansas, the Wheat Tour 26 highlighted continued stress across Kansas wheat country. Scouts evaluated 117 fields from Colby to Wichita with drought, freeze damage, and wheat streak mosaic virus sharply reducing yield potential in many areas. Check out the Kansas Wheat Post on our Harvest USA report Facebook page.    And on the flip side of harvest, planting season is underway in Ransom County, North Dakota, where North Dakota Soybean Council Director Ted Brandt of Enderlin is getting the crop in the ground. Wishing all the North Dakota farmers a safe and productive season.

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We're talking to Ted Delagana.  Ted is now from Conrad, Montana, but used to be in, was it the Central Valley in California?    "Central Coast, is what we call it."   You were involved in agriculture down there?    "Yep, all my life."   What kind of things did you do?    "We always had cattle, and then worked for different places that had cattle, and always raised our own hay for the cattle up until when we left. And then I worked for a large place that we farmed about 3,000 acres of dryland grain and hay. Hay there is all oats and barley hay, so it's all just grain hay."   On this side of the Madison line, my dad always called it green feed.   "Pretty much. We had a whole different world there, a lot of rain down there. So, why did you have the cereal grains for hay, or green feed as we call it up here, instead of like something, perennial grass? Not many, we hardly had, a lot of alfalfa hay, a lot of alfalfa, but perennial grass like they have here, almost zero. The ranch I worked for we summer followed, but where I lived, we planted winter so every year. It was just a rain thing, I think, you know, the amount of rain we get."   Could you get more tons per acre off of doing green feed?    "There was alfalfa ranches around and they would get a ton and a half per cutting or so, I'd say, and cut five, sometimes six cuttings. But with our grain hay, we'd get as much as five times the acre on grain hay. You know, we were all selling to cattlemen, feedlots, and then we got fancy stuff. We started growing what they called forage mix. It was a mix of beardless barley, beardless wheat, and a couple varieties of oats. And we'd sell those to the racetracks like Santa Anita and a lot of horse people."   Ted Dalagana from Conrad, Montana with our co-host David Woodruff.  

It's time to get rolling, whether we like it or not, and we do like to get rolling!   MJB Harvesting was reiterating that message, ready or not, here we go, they wrote. "Moving things along a bit earlier than normal this year. Prayers for safe travels, patience and peace of mind for harvesters and farmers this year. Every year is different, but this one is pushing the boundaries on every aspect. There is very little wheat to cut in Texas and Oklahoma, but we will be blessed with a little, so we will be thankful for that and move forward. Please pray for rain in the areas that need it most, for an abundant fall crop." That was from MJB Harvesting.    We can always count on an update from Heil Harvesting, and they wrote, "and just like that, we're finished with our acres in central Oklahoma, and we're back home in Kansas. This means we're back to looking for work, so if you've got some wheat that isn't going to make it, and you're needing some swathing services, let's talk." - Heil Harvesting, LLC.    Mitchell Harvesting is kicking up some dust in Texas. And Braydan Harvesting reiterated that, saying, we're set up in Texas and Oklahoma, and dust will be flying soon.   Froese Brothers are Texas-bound with their first round of equipment, and according to Harvest Support USA UK, wheat is being cut in Oklahoma already, and KB Custom Ag Services is getting busy for the wheat harvest around Dumas, Texas.   Russell's Custom Harvesting writes, "Okay, I'm not really ready, but here we go. Not even finished with the school year yet, but ready to start the harvest run." They're reportedly getting started in Texas.   It sounds like we finally have some action. That's a look at where a few of our crews are. Stay tuned for tomorrow's Harvest USA report to find out more. That's going to do it for today's report.    Thanks again for listening, and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.

The report discusses how unusual weather patterns in 2026 have made it difficult for custom harvesters to find work across North America. Despite the slowdown, Demaray Harvesting and Trucking in Arizona recently began fieldwork, including deep ripping to break up compacted soil caused by flood irrigation. Hale Harvesting briefly secured a swathing job in Oklahoma, but the work ended quickly, leaving them searching for more opportunities again. Meanwhile, Beckley Harvesting shared photos from a gathering in Kansas, highlighting some community activity despite the challenging season. Overall, the industry is facing limited demand and uncertainty.   Welcome to the Harvest USA Report, I'm Brian Hale. An original production of Howard Hale Broadcasting, now expanded throughout North America. As many of you have heard, it's getting really tough right now for the custom harvesters to find work with the crazy weather patterns that 2026 has delivered.   However, we are finding just a few crews out there getting busy. Demaray Harvesting and Trucking LLC is in Casa Grande, Arizona. They've got a couple machines into the field this last week in Arizona.   It feels good to blow the cobwebs off and get back into the swing of things, they wrote. Demaray does a fair amount of deep ripping in Arizona throughout the year using a Steiger 525 with a 7 shank Wilcox ripper. Ripping is very important in this part of the country because with all of the flood irrigation, the ground gets severely compacted over time and turns into a hard pan.   We generally have to rip anywhere from 24 to 28 or more inches deep in to get under the pan and break the ground up again. Hale Harvesting had some good news, but it didn't last long. They wrote, one day we got a phone call and packed up and hauled a swather down into central Oklahoma.   The phone has just not been ringing, which has made it even more of a delightful surprise to get this swathing call for someone who was a custom grain harvester himself for more than 40 years. The only downside is that we're already finished and back to hunting for more work again, so if you're considering calling to talk swathing, don't hesitate. We wish we were in the field, but we're not.   That's from Hale Harvesting. Our friends at Beckley Harvesting Incorporated were enjoying some lights at Trucktown in Colby, Kansas recently. Some really neat pictures there can be found on our Harvest USA report Facebook page and be sure to follow us there.   That's going to do it for today's Harvest USA report. Thanks again for listening and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.

Let's check in with Kansas Corn and see how they're doing in Rice County, Kansas.   "Matt Splitter, Kansas Corn Growers president, here near Sterling, Kansas between Sterling and Lyons right in the middle of the state. And we are dry. We're very dry here. We have missed most all the rain that has moved through Kansas over the last couple months. We have had less than two inches of total precipitation here for the year, started January 1st. We did find some early moisture to plant into, but we had to stop planters about that second week of April to try to get some rain, try to get some moisture. We had 20 hundreds the other day here at this field. And so we are having some good emergence still, but it is very concerning that we'll get emergence, but it just will sit there. Progress through our area is kind of spotty hit and miss. We're just not seeing the traditional rollout of planters. Everybody going at once. And I think a lot of that has to do with how dry we are. But we've been here before. We'll get through it again. Statistically we get about 28 inches of rain a year here at this location. And we've had less than two at this point. So statistically, we are encouraged that there is more rain to come. And if that rain will come during the growing season, things will look good. Still trying to be as optimistic as we can. But right now it's we're just really, really dry.   Matt Splitter, Kansas Corn Growers.   Taking a look at the Kansas wheat crop conditions from the NASS... Winter wheat rated 17% very poor, 27% poor, 34% fair, 20% good, and 2% excellent. 

Let's catch the end of that conversation with David Misener and our host David Woodruff.   I guess one good thing about it, if there's no wheat, nobody's going to wear out any combines.   "No, that's, I can say, that is for sure. I got one guy do some little combine repair for and talk to him this morning and last year he had his engine go down just before the end of harvest and on his combine and he went and bought another one so he could finish harvest and he was wanting to upgrade anyways so that kind of forced him to and sold his broken one. But then because he traded combines he got a bigger one so he sold his old header that was smaller and now he's thinking this isn't the year to be going to buy a header. And I says, well don't worry I ain't going to use both of mine down here because there ain't nothing to do. I said I'll rent you a header so you can go combine what you got for seed wheat. Then he can worry about getting a header for that combine next year. He mentioned that he thinks he's got a good combine and he's pleased with what he bought is just a few, a few years old, less than five and and I told him and he says it'll probably take a few years to wear that thing out and I says well it'll even take a few more years if we have a few consistent years like this year even at that. Don't put hours on you don't wear it out. We'll try and see."   We'll sure ask the Lord's blessings on you all. It sure is a rough thing. We'll do what we can and God will bless us with enough that we need. He knows what's going on and we don't and it would be sometimes it'd be nice to have a glimmer of now just what you got in mind there Lord. It's like my old line. I stand by it. You got to be like a doctor and get patients.   David Misener with David Woodruff on our Harvest USA report for today.   Thanks again for listening and may God bless. I'm Brian Hale.

Sounds like our co-host David Woodruff has Dave Misener from Elk City, Oklahoma on the phone today. Let's check in with our David connection.   Things are looking like survival mode for you.   "Yeah that's that's right there's just I there ain't nobody hardly gonna come down this way to try and harvest something either because it's just it's not there, and you know back to having a few acres to harvest if they do, can't justify doing that, and you know they're trying to make hay because the cattle need to be fed, and love to have something to harvest around here. But if you're able to harvest and get some seed wheat that's about that's about what you're gonna get around here this year and hopefully there is that for everybody around."   One guy said Dave this the wheat six inches tall and it's heading out and I'm going oh that doesn't sound very good but yeah no there's I can say there's plenty of it that cattle have been on for a little while. It was intended to harvest and didn't and the cattle are out there eating on that and consume what they can and and then yeah with as warm as we were there a little over a month ago we had a lot of we've had quite a few days. I hate to say it, a month ago that we were up in the hundreds around Easter time and we we had some hundreds and that was just too hot too dry on that that wheat and just it just burnt it up and didn't let it grow and didn't didn't be able to materialize to anything.   David Misener from Elk City Oklahoma with our co-host David Woodruff from Alberta Canada.

Tune in to our 'David Connection' on Today's Harvest USA!   The conversation with Dave Meisner from Elk City, Oklahoma, discusses the current agricultural difficulties experienced in the region. Meisner highlights the challenges due to dry conditions, which have severely impacted wheat production, posing questions on having sufficient seed wheat. Some areas have received minor rainfall, which is too late for wheat but provides hope for crops like cotton and grass. Farmers are considering innovative approaches like using larger headers for swathing due to the scarcity of harvestable crops.   The discussion also touches on the issues faced by farmers in North Dakota, who are struggling with extended winter conditions, preventing them from entering the fields for the planting season. A broader perspective on the high fertilizer costs due to global issues is briefly mentioned, impacting farmers' decisions and operations.

So we're talking to Michael Deacon, Conrad Montana. So how are things looking?   "Okay we've got some surface moisture, not a lot of deep moisture. Everybody's getting rolling on spring seeding and yeah so things look good for now but we definitely need some more here shortly."   So that last storm that came through hit our country with we about a half an inch of snow or maybe a quarter. Did you get any of that?   "Yep, just a skiff of snow."   Some beats nothing.   "Yep."   So do you have any winter wheat?   "We do, yeah, we had we did put in some winter wheat. Well and I think just right where we were here because there's some pretty good-looking winter wheat around but yeah ours looks a little spotty in areas. I was gonna go scout it out a little bit and kind of see if we needed to redo a little bit of it but yeah I don't know there's some pretty decent looking winter wheat around."   Some pretty good-looking winter wheat in our in our area too.   "Good."   Do you raise any canola down there?   "We don't, no."   There is some canola in the neighborhood, I think isn't there?   "Yeah there is some I'll see canola every now and then, not a ton like up north, but yeah there's some grown for sure."   Lentils and chickpeas and stuff like that, are they good bit dry land?   "Yeah yeah there's quite a bit grown. I know the lentil prices are way down this year, so there's I don't think there's quite as much. I think the same on conventional chickpeas. We're doing some organic chickpeas and we haven't done that in a number of years so we'll see how that goes."   That was David Woodruff from Alberta Canada talking with Michael Deacon from Conrad Montana.

How do you pronounce Triticale? It's a controversy unanswered thus far... regardless of what we call it, Heil Harvesting is cutting it! Let's LISTEN IN!

A special report on the organization behind the giant combines you see on the highways or in the fields in a distance... LISTEN IN for a special Harvest USA Report with Brian Hale, sitting in for Howard Hale