selling the crop
Andy,
I only planted about 40 acres of wheat this year. I just overseeded my bermuda fields. I will cut it for hay in the spring, hopefully about the first of May. The wheat serves several purposes for me. It is a cover crop in the winter to help keep any erosion to a minimum. It also helps crowd out a great deal of the undesirable winter weeds that hurt my bermuda crop by coming out before the bermuda comes out of dormancy which is usually in mid April. This saves me money on herbicides in the spring and helps save the enviroment by not polluting the area ponds and such. I will cut the wheat for hay about the time the temps get right for prolific bermuda growth. The bermuda then can outgrow the weeds and junk grasses and I can have cleaner and higher quality hay for the horse market. I hope for about 2 or 3 rolls of wheat hay per acre at $20 a roll. This can make for a total of $1600 to $2400 for the wheat hay. Or if I choose, I can have it combined and sell the wheat and then bale the straw. This would make me more money, but would be alot more work. If I could get just 20 bushels of wheat per acre at $3.60 a bushel "which is the going price now" and then get a couple thousand bales of straw, I could potentially make 2 times what I could by rolling the wheat for hay and selling the rolls to beef farmers and or dairy farmers for dry lot cow hay.
Jay