Season Assessment
- Thread starter westksbowhunter
- Start date
Carguy2Banker
Well-known member
Yep! This is a wheat variety change that farmers were happy to see. The variety I grew up around harvesting was called Larned. It was everywhere. It was a very tall variety and would allow the "farmer/rancher" to remove the straw spreader off the back of the combine and it would leave a large windrow of straw. This windrow would then be baled up for cattle bedding use in the winter. I'm sure there were several reasons for this variety to be less popular today, but the biggest complaint was many times, just before harvest, it would lodge and lay flat on the ground making it extremely difficult to harvest. To get all the grain, it required putting the header on the ground. This meant all of the straw had to pass through the separator which really slowed down the harvesting process (and was hard on machinery, and started little of fires.) Additionally, there are a lot fewer farmer/rancher diversified operations today, so the need for straw bales is less. Fortunately, the new stripper head style headers have become more popular and this is creating good nesting habitats. Unfortunately, I do think there are a lot of chicks that get killed during harvest with these headers.
I read somewhere in this forum another gentleman's observation... "The better the farmer, the worse the pheasant habitat is." No truer words spoken.
BrownDogsCan2
Well-known member
Seems like It was mostly Larned and Tam107
westksbowhunter
Well-known member
I'm not referring to killing chicks, I'm referring to huntable habitat. Now they harvest wheat on Monday and bale on Tuesday.
Estimated 22 million acres of suitable habitat. Estimated harvest is 7 Roosters per 640 acres. While populations and habitat will always change. Major factors in Harvest numbers will always be the number of hunters which is at a historical low for pheasants but high for other species like deer and waterfoul.
westksbowhunter
Well-known member
I encourage everyone to listen to the Jan. 8th commission meeting, especially the part on CRP starting around the 2 hour mark. It discusses that since the peak of CRP, acres have decreased 40% in recent years and talks about 100% emergency haying and grazing that isn't just limited to landowner but transfers to those that lease. Wheat production has decreased 50% and milo has decreased 20%. They specifically talk about the decreasing acres of habitat for upland birds.
22 million acres in Kansas yet Iowa, which I hunt twice a year, has less than 5 million acres of habitat, yet has nearly 500,000 pheasants harvested yearly the last several years. I would question the validity of the 22 million acres of habitat in Kansas.
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Today I drove from Holdrege Nebraska to guymon Oklahoma. So across Kansas from north to south. With the exception of the Norton wildlife management area I did not see one place that would compel me to give it a shot. What I did see was some of the most intensive agriculture practices I’ve seen anywhere. No fences, little crp, mowed ditches some golfers would envy. Pretty sad what used to be the number 2 upland destination in the country
We are well diversified here and have plenty of Crp and Grasslands left over after planting crops 1.95 million acres in 2024 and we were the #1 state for sign ups in 2025. Moisture is what is needed Iowa gets more rain so that helps.
2024, an estimated 23.9 million acres of principal crops were planted in Kansas. The primary crops by planted acreage were winter wheat, corn, and soybeans.
The breakdown in acres planted in Kansas for major crops in 2024 is as follows:
2024, an estimated 23.9 million acres of principal crops were planted in Kansas. The primary crops by planted acreage were winter wheat, corn, and soybeans.
The breakdown in acres planted in Kansas for major crops in 2024 is as follows:
- Winter Wheat: 7.60 million acres planted.
- Corn (all purposes): 6.30 million acres planted.
- Soybeans: 4.53 million acres planted.
- Sorghum (all purposes): 3.00 million acres planted.
- All Hay: 2.215 million acres of all hay and haylage harvested.
- Oats: 160,000 acres planted.
- Cotton (upland): 131,000 acres planted.
- Sunflower: 10,500 acres planted.
- Canola: 8,500 acres planted.
- Barley: 9,000 acres planted.
carptom1
Well-known member
I would love to know where all that sorghum crop is. I travel around a bit for work and the most I saw anywhere was in SE Kansas. It was enough that I noticed, but not like it was when there was miles of it and the birds were good
Kansas is roughly 52 million acres with 24 million acres of principal crops, yet only 1 million acres of WIHA and another 1 million in State and Federal hunting land. No wonder public hunting is so difficult!
I am originally from Utah (been in Kansas since 2008) and the states are both about the same size with Utah being 54 million acres, but only 25% of the State is privately owned as compared to Kansas being 98% privately owned. In Utah very few people hunt private land, in Kansas there are people who have hunted their entire lives and have never hunted public land. It is very difficult to get an accurate season assessment because the playing field is definitely not level.
Milo is all over out in Western KS on dryland fields. It's basically a wheat/Milo/corn rotation out there for anything that does not have irrigation, after the Milo/corn harvest its fallow until the next fall when wheat is planted.