What a difference a year can make.

Last year producers in western North Dakota struggled through one of the driest years on record.

This year they're having trouble finding room for their bumper crop.

Tonight Ag. Reporter Sarah Gustin takes you to Belfield and shows you the difference a little moisture can make.

"Crawling along at 4 mph for 12 hours a day and Byron Richard isn't complaining

He's harvesting a crop of a lifetime

(Byron Richard) "I would say this per bushel, per acre is probably the best one we have had." In 30 years of farming Byron Richard can't remember a crop that looked like this 8 unloading and yielded like this...7:We have seen it has high as 115 , 120, winter wheat we got up to 140 with it. Richard says they're more used to winter wheat yields in the 50s and spring wheat in the 30s

computer noise set to 180 (Byron Richard / Belfield Farmer) "Our technology gets improving, better knowledge on our inputs. So we are always going to continue to enhance our yields from what we call normal." Richard says this year the winter wheat averaged more than 70 bushels an acre

The spring wheat is running over 50

(Byron Richard / Belfield Farmer) "We foresee in a couple days here we will possibly be looking at going on the growund with some grain. The big winter wheat crop filled up alot of our storage, now we are trying to look for a place to put our spring wheat and the elevator is starting to fill up. I think we are going to see more grain on the ground this year then we have ever seen in the southwest and that is a contrast from last year where we couldn't even come up with enough wheat to meet our seed needs." Last year's winter wheat didn't even make 10 bushels an acre

Most of the spring wheat wasn't even worth combining

This year the wheat looks good, but that doesn't mean it is going to be a complete bumper year

(Byron Richard / Belfield Farmer) "If there is a crop that I am real concerned about it is probably the Corn. Our corn looks to me like we are going to need alot of sunshine in the next couple weeks to make that work. It's not even dented yet and we are already pushing September 1st." North of Belfield for KX news, I am Sarah Gustin."


Richard says they'll harvest over 600-thousand bushels this year. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list