John J. Heise

John HeiseKS Soybean Assn 13486 S Wannamaker RoadScranton, KS 66537Home Phone: 785-793-2588

Soybean Association Pres.; Ron Heck, ASA First V-Pres.; and David Barnes, Va. Soybean Association Pres. (Back row, L to R) David Iverson, S.D. Soybean Association Pres.; Randy Mann, Ky. Soybean Association Pres.; Joe Steiner, Ohio Soybean Association Pres.; Carl Martin, Ala. Soybean Association Pres.; Dan Beenken, Iowa Soybean Association Pres.; John Heise, Kan. Soybean Association Pres.; Jon Quinn, Mid-Atlantic Soybean Association Pres.; Sam Brake, N.C. Soybean Producers Association Pres.; and Barry Nelson, Public Relations Manager, John Deere.

John J. Heise

Scranton farmer John Heise loaded about 600 bushels of soybeans into a truck to deliver to a processor in Emporia this week.He and his father still have another 1,200 bushels in storage.
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"It's the highest it's been since I've been farming," said Heise, 43, who is president of the Kansas Soybean Association.He farms with his father on land near Scranton, 15 miles south of Topeka on Wanamaker Road.
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Heise, a third-generation farmer, is one of many Kansas growers who is benefitting from the huge demand for soybeans.Bushels have been fetching more than $10.Last year, Kansas farmers harvested 57 million bushels of soybeans, down 2.3 percent from 58.4 million in 2002 and down 34 percent from 87.3 million in 2001.Prices were strong last fall, averaging $7.60 per bushel, but the yield averaged only 23 bushels per acre in Kansas.Because the price was high, Kansas farmers made $433 million in 2003, about $70 million more than in 2001, when the yield averaged 32 bushels per acre, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

"We had enough crop to take advantage of the price increase," Heise said.

But there have been years, he said, when the drought was so bad he couldn't harvest the beans.
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Heise said he expects to plant beans on 400 to 450 acres this year, about the same as last year.

During the weekend, he loaded more than 600 bushels of beans into a truck to be delivered to Bunge North America soybean processor in Emporia.Heise had contracted last year to deliver the beans this week.

Because of the increasing price, it is possible soybean farmers will plant more this year, but Kansas estimates for crop plantings weren't available yet.

John Nowak/The Capital-JournalHeise holds a handful of soybeans harvested last fall.Heise said the 1,200 bushels of soybeans that he and his father have left is just a small percentage of their overall crop.

"It's a little amount," Heise said.

"Frankly, I am a little surprised it came out that high," said John Heise, a Scranton farmer and president of the Kansas Soybean Association.

The soybean harvest has varied widely in Kansas, but Heise could not think of any region of the state where it was particularly good to come up with those kind of yield averages put out by the statisticians.

Around the Kansas City area, a lot of farmers did not bother to harvest their soybeans but just drilled in the seed for next year's wheat crop into fields of standing beans, he said.

"I heard of too many spots like that," Heise said.

His own farm just south of Topeka was averaging 22 bushels an acre for soybeans.

"Our average is dropping after the last few years with the dry weather we are experiencing so regularly here lately," Heise said."It is presenting more of a challenge."

Rain helped the quality of this year's soybean crop.

"Our rains hit early enough to bring bean size up to more respectable size, but there weren't that many beans there," Heise said.

"I imagine we will remember this one for a very long time," said John Heise, a Scranton farmer and president of the Kansas Soybean Association.