NGALLS – As he drove his red combine through his field of corn, Joe Jury hoped this wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime crop.
But it doesn’t normally rain like this in southwest Kansas. The Gray County farmer has received 30 inches of moisture since January. In a normal year, he might average 18 to 20.
No, he said with
a smile: Years like this one don’t come along often. But with plentiful rains filling his soil profile, Jury took a gamble, and it has paid off.
On this September afternoon, as heavy yellow kernels poured into his combine tank, the fifth-generation farmer estimated the dryland crop he was cutting was yielding anywhere from 115 to 130 bushels an acre. That’s the best he’s ever harvested.
“Everything just came together: rains at the right time, good genetics. That’s what you work for. That is what you hope for every year,” he said.
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