The Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. — Excessive wetness across the central and southern Great Plains has delayed winter wheat harvest and threatened crop quality, the National Agricultural Statistics Service said Tuesday.

In its weekly weather bulletin, the agency reported that winter wheat heading across the middle Mississippi Valley and the southern half of the Great Plains was completed or near completion. Wheat crops were maturing at a normal pace in all wheat growing states — except for Kansas, Colorado and Montana.

The nation’s wheat harvest begins in the southern states and moves northward as crops mature. But NASS noted wheat harvest so far in Texas was 10 percent completed, compared with 25 percent at this time last year. In Oklahoma, harvest was just 3 percent complete, compared with 45 percent at this date a year ago.

The winter wheat harvest typically begins in early June in Kansas, with the Kiowa area historically the first place in the state to take in grain. The report noted no wheat has been harvested in Kansas.

At the OK Co-op Grain Co. elevator in Kiowa, general manager Alan Meyers said he expected wheat harvest in his area not to begin in earnest for at least another week and a half.

Meyers blamed the delay on last fall’s drought, saying much of the wheat planted then didn’t emerge until after the region got snow in February. That has thrown crop development back two or three weeks in many fields.

The Kiowa elevator has gotten only one test-cutting sample from a neighboring Oklahoma field that indicated the crop was dry enough to harvest, and Meyers said he expected only scattered, isolated loads to be brought in to the elevator in the coming days.

The latest crop update from the Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service showed just 36 percent of the wheat in Kansas has turned color. That compared with 75 percent last year and 58 percent for the five-year average for this late in the season.

The lateness in crop emergence in the Kiowa is expected to limit the size of its harvest, Meyers said.

“It is going to be pretty disappointing,” Meyers said of the upcoming wheat harvest.

Although the crop in southern Kansas was not as extensively damaged by the late-winter freeze as fields in the central part of the state, it has been plagued by problems this spring.

“It was hit by a little bit of freeze damage, a little bit of rust damage, a little bit of armyworm damage. Put all that together and you have a lot of wheat laying on the ground. ... We didn’t have too much freeze damage, but you put a little bit of that, a little bit of another and pretty soon you still have much of a mess,” he said.

On Monday, Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service rated 35 percent of the wheat statewide in poor to very poor condition. About 32 was listed as fair, with 25 percent rated as good and 8 percent excellent.

The report indicated armyworms were the predominant pest in Kansas, although 61 percent of the wheat showed no sign of any insect infestation, KASS reported. About 34 percent of the wheat showed no disease problems.