Author: Marit Ehmke

  • How Booms Die

    How Booms Die

    Wheat and More…or LessBy Vance Ehmke3-2-24 As they say, “In front of every silver lining, there’s a dark cloud”. The silver lining was the good years in farming of 2021 and 2022. And the dark cloud, well, that’s what’s staring us in the face right now. Indeed, the good years were good. After wheat prices…

  • Ehmke Seed triticale varieties sweep KSU forage tests

    In 2022-2023 KSU forage tests, all three Ehmke Seed triticale varieties scored in the top yield group with ThunderTall and ThunderTall ll topping the trials with dry matter production of 7439 pounds and 7354 pounds when harvested at soft dough. These were irrigated trials at the Garden City Experiment Station. In addition, ThunderCale V, a…

  • Will the Ogallala Go the Way of the Buffalo?

    Wheat and More…..or LessBy Vance Ehmke11-22-23 The thing that very nearly led to the extinction of an entire species, the American Bison, was what they call, “The Tragedy of the Commons”. In other words, the 19th century Americans saw the bison as owned by everybody, but owned by no one. And the parallels between how…

  • Big Wheat Could Lead to Big Concerns

    Wheat and More….or less By Vance Ehmke 11-8-23 Wheat grower Don Hineman of Dighton KS couldn’t believe his good luck when early September rains dumped 3 to 5 inches on parched dry fields setting  him and other Lane County farmers up with near perfect planting conditions. But the mild and even hot conditions since then…

  • Ehmke Seed: EcoDevo Business of the Month

    Ehmke Seed of western Lane County was established back in the mid-1980s when Vance and Louise Ehmke couldn’t find a source of seed for the newly released TAM 107 wheat variety. That variety was literally light years ahead in yield of all other commercial varieties at the time. Anxious to incorporate thisnew seed technology in…

  • Here We Go Again

    Wheat and More…or less By Vance Ehmke In talking with wheat growers from southwest Oklahoma up well into northern Kansas, I’m hearing the same story over and over again. “It’s dry, dry, dry.” Here we go again. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we slipped back in time and it’s September 2022 all over…

  • It’s seed season at our Scale House!

  • ThunderTall II Tops Texas Triticale Trials 

    Once again, the popular tall, late-season ThunderTall Il triticale won an important irrigated hay-silage trial, this time in the Texas Panhandle in trials conducted by Texas A&M.  Jourdan Bell, TAMU agronomist, said the Ehmke Seed Co., ThunderTall II variety won the Bushland TX trials with a dry matter yield of 7330 pounds per acre when…

  • Fall Seed Supplies Could Be Tight

    Wheat and More….or less By Vance Ehmke If you’re looking for seed wheat, rye or triticale to plant this fall, you might want to start looking sooner rather than later. One of the consequences of having the worst Kansas wheat crop in the past 50 to 60 years is that the supply of seed wheat…

  • Is there a best Midwest cereal option?

    By Mary Drewnoski for Hay and Forage Grower Over the past three years, we have been trying to identify if there is a decisive difference between using cereal rye, winter triticale, or winter wheat as a forage resource for beef cattle. Triticale is often held up as the best overall forage option. Indeed, when we evaluated…