LL- I’m curious where you’re land is as only a fairly small area of SEK grows soft wheat. We were 100% soft wheat for the last 2 years. Soft has considerably higher yield potential than hard but is usually worth less per bushel, requires more nitrogen to reach that higher potential, and has higher seed costs. Our yields were 75-80 this year and 80-90 last year.

Numerous factors can have dramatic effects on yield. Planting date is big, usually October is better than November, but too early can cause issues as well. Second would be rainfall. In this area, excess moisture often causes more problems for wheat than too little. It’s not all that uncommon for heavy rain between planting and emergence to reduce stand by either rotting the seed or crusting the ground so that less comes up. Then there is late winter/early spring weather that affects tillering, and April/May weather that can bring disease.

As to your final question, one thing that SEK is certainly not, is consistent. Next year the wheat could make 100 or 30. Soybeans can make 20-60 but probably less this year for us, especially the double crop beans. With decent weather without extremes, we raise 140-150 bushel corn but will be 40-50 this year. Again, we are often hurt as much or more by too much rain and cool temps early as we are hot and dry later on corn.