AKRON, Ind. — If farming is risky, growing wheat is even riskier in Fulton and Kosciusko counties, where finding a field of wheat is about as simple as finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

“I don’t plant wheat,” Brian Romine, a Kosciusko County farmer, said. “It just isn’t worth it.”

John Gaerte, a farmer living on the Fulton County side of the Miami County line, added, “I’ve rented my fields, but I can tell you we’ve had no wheat here for years.”

Mark Kepler, Purdue University extension educator in Fulton County, replied to the question: “How is the county’s wheat crop?” by saying, “There isn’t a crop.”

He said wheat simply does not do well in the county. “About the only reason any farmer grows it is to harvest the straw and to provide a dry area on which to spread manure.”

To that Romine added, “When I did try wheat I used it as a dry base for drainage tile. The crop itself was minimal.”

Kepler noted some farmers planted wheat last fall but cold weather set in too soon and it never came up. “Wheat is a failure around here,” he said. “It’s come up, but it didn’t have a chance to vernalize before the cold weather came.”

Kelly Heckman, the Kosciusko County extension educator, agreed. “Very few farmers in this county plant wheat. It just isn’t worth it,” she explained.

Phil Runkle of North Central Co-op, Burket, said his theory for the reason wheat doesn’t thrive in the area is because of its location on the periphery of Lake Michigan.

“Even though we’re 50 or 60 miles from the lake, I think atmospheric conditions draw a cloud layer. Wheat needs sun to thrive, but we get more clouds here – up to 40 percent more than other parts of the state. Over in Whitley County, they’re getting a better crop. They’re out of that clouded area.”