Wheat Production

Kansas farmers grow mostly Hard Red and Hard White winter wheat. Winter wheat planting in Kansas takes place in the fall, usually from late September to early October.

Wheat sprouts and shoots out of the ground, growing until the first freeze of the winter, when it turns dormant until spring. Spring's warm weather and rain showers enables the wheat to come out of dormancy, and grow to maturity. The wheat crop turns from green to golden in late May, with harvest lasting from early June to mid-July.

During harvest, farmers take harvested wheat to a grain elevator, where the farmer sells it in units called "bushels." The wheat is stored in the big white "Kansas skyscrapers" until grain elevator managers sell it on a grain exchange. People such as millers, brewers, feed manufacturers and exporters, buy wheat and it is used domestically and around the world.