Meet John Fellers

Many years ago, just like Tom Cruise in the film "Far and Away," a Fellers family ancestor left his tobacco farm in Ohio, saddled up his horse and boarded a train west to claim land offered in the land run of 1893. And the rest is history. Over one hundred years later, a wheat farm located just south of Kiowa, Kansas in Burlington, Oklahoma, is still owned and managed by the Fellers. As a fifth-generation wheat farmer and a wheat scientist, John Fellers, of Manhattan, Kansas, has a unique perspective of the wheat industry.

John works with Kansas State University’s Hard Winter Wheat Genetics Research Unit that focuses on understanding wheat diseases and leaf rust. Even though he enjoys sequencing genomes and making discoveries, John likes getting back to his roots during wheat harvest every year when he goes back to help his family bring in the grain.

“I was active in FFA, just a farm kid. We were wheat and cattle farmers and now even though I work here, I still have an active part of the home farm. My father manages the farm, but I still help make decisions,” John said.

Being a scientist and a farmer also helps John connect to producers. He can promote his research but he’s also been around the equipment and knows the complications that sometimes arise.

“I can really have a connection with the wheat commissioners because I can talk combine parts and I know what they go through.  I know what a combine costs and I know what it takes to fix it. I know what it’s like to run a skunk through it and have to dig it out,” John said.