Wheat harvesting has started and the first yield reports are in.  The Dorward family harvested a field I had previously inspected for freeze damage.   The estimated damage from the late freezes was 30 to 40 percent.   Their field’s average yield was 35 bushels per acre.  If we assume the average damage was 35 percent, the field’s undamaged production potential would have been about 53 bushels per acre.  Robert Payne and I visited on Friday.  He feels his average production will be similar.  The yield monitor on his combine has ranged from a low 15 bushels per acre to over 100 bushels per acre.  Wheat is currently at an estimated $7.50 per bushel.  If the freeze cut the average yields by 18 bushels, then Bosque County farmers will have lost about $2 million in potential income this year.  Farming is a gamble.  Every time a seed is planted, hope and faith are right there with it.  This is why I admire farmers so much.  It takes a lot of faith to put seed in the ground year after year knowing disaster may lie in the next spring cold snap or bug infestation.