Kansas

Wheat stripe rust, a fungal disease that can reduce yields by 40 percent, has "swept through fields from Oklahoma to Kansas up into the Dakotas and east into the Great Lakes states," says DTN. The disease arrived as the winter wheat crop nears harvest; USDA will update its estimate of the crop on Friday.

April showers revived the winter wheat crop across Kansas, so the harvest may be one of the best ever, said crop scouts after a three-day assessment of conditions. They forecast a harvest of 382 million bushels, up 19 percent from 2015, said Bloomberg.

Seven dozen crop scouts are to begin a hectic three-day motorized sprint across Kansas today, with the goal to sample roughly 500 fields and produce an estimate of the crop in the nation's No. 1 winter wheat state. Their estimate, expected at midday Thursday, will be the first in a shower of crop forecasts that will run through the fall harvest.

Conservative Rep. Mike Pompeo, sponsor of the House-passed bill to pre-empt state GMO label laws, is declining to say if he will run for the Senate in Kansas against fellow Republican and incumbent Jerry Moran.

A Tea Party group in Kansas said it may encourage Milton Wolf to run in the Republican primary on Aug. 2 against first-term Sen. Jerry Moran, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees USDA and FDA funding.

The "Big First" congressional district of Kansas covers nearly two-thirds of the state and perennially is among the top agricultural districts in the country. The Republican primary for Congress isn't until Aug. 2 but the Kansas Livestock Association already decided to back a challenger, physician Roger Marshall, over third-term incumbent Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party conservative.

The Republican nominee for Senate in Arkansas, Rep Tom Cotton, says in a campaign advertisement that he voted against the farm bill because it had "turned into a food stamp bill with billions (of dollars) more in spending," says the Associated Press. Cotton was the only Arkansas lawmaker to vote against the $500 billion, five-year farm bill. Democratic Sen Mark Pryor, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, has criticized Cotton for the vote.

The government plans to pro-rate subsidy payments for 2014, 2015 and 2016 grain and soybean crops, says economist Art Barnaby of Kansas State U at the Ag Manager website.

Tea Party-backed Milton Wolf, the radiologist who unsuccessfully challenged Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts in the Republican primary last year, is fueling speculation that he will try again for the Senate, this time against incumbent Jerry Moran, chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the USDA and FDA spending.

Repeated rain storms have slowed the winter wheat harvest from Indiana to Kansas, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

U.S. soybean growers will harvest a record 3.6 billion bushels of the oilseed this fall but the corn crop, at 13.3 billion bushels, will run 4 percent short of a record, estimated economist Dan O'Brien of Kansas State University. O'Brien also forecast 2014/15 end stocks of 1.3 billion bushels of corn, largest since 2009/10, and 417 million bushels of soybeans, largest since 2006/07.

Persistently rainy spring weather is bogging down the winter wheat harvest in Kansas, the No. 1 state for winter wheat, Oklahoma and Missouri, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

Growers in Kansas and Missouri, which produce more than 10 percent of the U.S. soybean crop, have planted less than half as much of the soybean land as usual for the first week in June, says the weekly Crop Progress report.

USDA identified a strain of highly contagious avian influenza in a poultry flock in Leavenworth County, Kansas, "the latest flare-up in a multi-state outbreak threatening U.S. poultry producers," said the PBS NewsHour.

A bill in the Republican-controlled Kansas state Senate would change the state's method for assessing farmland value and could sharply increase property taxes for farmers and ranchers, says the Scott County Record, which says there could be "a huge shift in the property tax burden."

"It sounds like the plot of a cheesy 1950s sci-fi movie," says Delta Farm Press in a story about the rapid spread of the sugarcane aphid, which can cause huge losses in sorghum yields.

Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts plans to eat lunch at Mill Valley High School in Shawnee, Kan, today to see "what works and what doesn't" in the school food program.

Kansas Republican Jerry Moran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, has $1.4 million in cash in his campaign fund, said Roll Call.