Small grain fields across Kingfisher County are ripening as harvest time steadily approaches.

As usual, the fields, which earlier gave the appearance of seas of green as breezes created waves, are rapidly turning gold as the days grow longer and warmer.

Local observers predict that as usual some fields may be ready for harvest at the end of the month – May 30 or 31 –but the first week of June may be a more likely starting date.

A forecast of showers toward the end of this week could delay the start of grain harvest.

Combines are appearing outside the barns where they have been stored since the end of the last harvest and owners have begun the process of “going through” them to make sure they are ready for another frenzied harvest season.

Other producers are making arrangements for custom harvesters.

Some harvesting activity has already begun – for area Canola fields.

Randall Varnell, manager of the Kingfisher Wheeler Brothers Elevator and store, reported Monday that some producers had already swathed Canola fields and harvest would likely start on those fields at the first part of next week, depending on the weather.

Varnell said the May showers and cooler temperatures probably saved this year’s grain crop.

“They certainly did more good than harm,” he said.

Hot, dry, windy days in late April had begun to put heavy stress on the grain.

Varnell predicted a little below average grain crop because of a mid-April freeze.

It hit southern and south western fields particularly hard but also was felt in Kingfisher County.

“You can see it (freeze damage) once you get into the fields,” Varnell said. Gary Altizer, manager

Gary Altizer, manager of Okarche Grain and Feed Elevator and the Kingfisher Station, south of Kingfisher, said growers were more optimistic in that area after May showers arrived.

Altizer said cooler temperatures accompanying rain could help some fields.

CHS Manager Jason Kroener said there are varying opinions by producers about the crop, but he thinks it might be a little above average in the Okarche area with an early June starting date.

“Sixty days ago we thought we had a bumper crop but the late freeze and the appearance of more disease than we first thought changed that,” Kroener said.

He also pointed out that more fields had been baled for hay than expected, which will reduce bushels harvested.

Kroener said there is plenty of storage space available for this year’s crop.

B.J. Waeger, manager of the Wheeler Brothers Elevator at Omega, said the timely May showers boosted crop optimism in that area after dry weather and hot winds in late April created concern.

There is more freeze damage than first observed, but Waeger said some fields, especially the later maturing varieties, are developing a third berry in the mesh, which will boost yields.

A rain this week could help those fields as well as help pasture grasses, he said.

A spokesman at CHS Elevator at Loyal said the elevator was ready for the start of harvest. May rains appeared to have helped crops in those fields.

Hennessey CHS Elevator Manager Keith Boeckman was reviewing past years’ harvest numbers when contacted by the Times & Free Press.

“Our average harvest is between 400,000 and 450,000 bushels,” he said. “I don’t know if we will reach that average.”

This is Boeckman’s first harvest at Hennessey although he has been in the business for 20 years.

A nice rain in early May helped wheat fields south and east of Hennessey.

John Schaefer, manager of Cashion Grain and Feed, speculated harvest would get under way in the Cashion area in the first week of June.

Fields are in varying stages of development there with some still very green and others turning color rapidly.

“We always seem to harvest three or four days after Okarche and Kingfisher,” he commented.

Harvest traditionally starts earlier in Southwest Oklahoma. Elevator managers were unanimous in their opinion that predicting a wheat crop is difficult.

“You never know what it’s going to be until combines get into the fields,” said one.

Statewide, observers predict the harvest is going to be a little smaller than last year.

Agricultural specialists held an on-line event earlier in the month reviewing harvest prospects area by area across the state in which the late freeze damage received attention.

This year’s predictions are a little bit tricky, evaluators said, because of a mid-April freeze that hit wheat fields in southern and southwestern Oklahoma particularly hard.

During the online-event hosted by Oklahoma State University, they observed that wheat growers usually can evaluate freeze-related damage to their crops within 10 days of a typical freeze.

That isn’t necessarily true this year, though, because crops closer to the Red River were entering their pollination phase when the event happened.

Kingfisher County Extension Director-Agricultural Educator Bryan Kennedy said he is observing more freeze damage across the county as the crop progresses.

He noted that the forecast calling for additional rain in the next 10 to 12 days could affect harvest.

“It’s been an unusual year,” he said, mentioning a bumpy start with rains affecting planting times, followed by a lack of a dormancy-inducing freeze, a winter-long growing spurt, the April drouth and then the May rains.

He expressed special concern about the prospects for rye crops in northern Kingfisher County. Kennedy projected a start

Kennedy projected a start to the wheat harvest in two weeks time, starting in the Okarche-Kingfisher area and then progressing north.