Lines of trucks loaded with wheat are a familiar site at grain elevators during harvest season. Those lines are rare this year, as the farmers and harvesters wait for hot, dry, windy days that are critical to curing the winter wheat crop.

Many of the coffee drinkers filling the cafe Friday down the road from Pride Grain in Martin were frustrated farmers and custom wheat harvesters, according to Clarence Allen, the grain elevator's feed salesman. The Bennett County Fairgrounds is filled with idle combines, Allen said.

In a normal year, most of Bennett County's winter wheat fields are empty by late July, and custom harvesters have moved on to their next job; but not this year.

"We're two weeks behind where we should be, easily," Allen said.

The Agricultural Statistics Service estimates that only 4 percent of South Dakota's winter wheat crop was harvested as of Sunday, July 20, according to Steve Noyes, deputy director of the service's South Dakota field office.

Looking at harvest records over a five-year period, Noyes said 58 percent of the crop should typically be out of the field by now.

The harvest has been sporadic; wheat matured slowly through a cool, damp growing season. Rain showers and high humidity also have slowed the harvest's progress.

"We're battling some moisture issues," said Dan Powell, head of the grain marketing department for Pierre-based Midwest Cooperatives. The cooperative operates seven grain elevators in the heart of South Dakota's winter wheat country.

The price of wheat is discounted when the grain's moisture content reaches 13.6 percent. Wheat must be below that before it can be shipped from the elevator, Powell said.

"We're working with guys to do a little blending," he said.

So far, the wheat coming into the elevator is either dry or fairly wet, Powell said. Mixing the dryer wheat with the wetter wheat balances the moisture content.

What the crop needs is a change in the weather pattern, Allen and Powell said.

"It's good to have the moisture," Allen said. But when it's humid, the combines can't get into the fields until later in the day. "And then, the thunderstorms roll in."

Powell said harvest activity has been steady, but it hasn't been a typical harvest. A string of 50 empty rail cars stood Friday, waiting to haul wheat.

"We're actually waiting for wheat to put on the cars," Powell said.

Powell was optimistic that the harvest's pace would pick up Friday and through the weekend, when temperatures were expected to rise.

Good rains through the growing season also have dampened winter and spring wheat protein levels, according to Powell.

"Quality-wise, we're seeing lower proteins in general," he said. Winter wheat proteins are running about a full point below normal.

"The wheat we've been getting has been running 11.6 to 11.7," Powell said. Millers demand a minimum protein of 12 percent, he said. "We need something else to blend with it to make it 12."

Test weights have stayed at or above the standard 60 pounds per bushel, Powell said.

Producers who invested in fertilizer will see a return on their costs with better proteins and higher yields, Powell said.

"These guys who put fertilizer on are going to get paid a little more," he said.

Powell has heard yields ranging from 50 to 85 bushels per acre. "I heard a small pocket where over 100 bushels per acre was reported."

Western South Dakota produced about one-third of the 95 million bushels of winter wheat produced in the state last year, according to the Agricultural Statistics Service.

The 2008 winter wheat crop was estimated at 82.6 million bushels, with an average yield of 48 bushels per acre on 1.727 million acres. Farmers planted about 200,000 fewer acres of winter wheat last fall, according to Noyes.

"There was a little bit of a shift to spring wheat, which was up 250,000 acres," he said. Noyes said high wheat prices early in the year made the switch attractive to some producers.

In the Pierre area, spring wheat harvest could start as early as next week, Powell said.

And, down in Martin, a few combiners could be leaving delayed jobs to keep other customers happy.

"Combiners are getting anxious," Allen said, adding that at least one custom harvester planned to pull out Friday and head north.

Contact Andrea Cook at 394-8423 or andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com