RYEGATE — While most 18-year-olds are spending hundreds of hours in gymnasiums hoping to bring home championship hardware this winter sports season, Wyatt Ramage, who lives in Billings, has already claimed his state title — not on a basketball court, but behind the wheel of a combine.
Wyatt Ramage recently took home first place for dryland winter wheat in the 2025 National Wheat Yield Contest, hosted by the National Association of Wheat Growers, and finished fifth in the nation for percent of yield above the county average.
Watch Wyatt and Kelly Ramage talk about what it means to them:
The competition challenges farmers nationwide to get creative and experiment with new techniques to achieve higher wheat yields.
"It's kinda crazy to think that we won it to be honest, but a lot of hard work goes into doing it," Wyatt Ramage said Monday.
"The numbers were numbers that I didn't believe were even possible, to be honest with you," Kelly Ramage said.
For Wyatt, farming isn't a chore — it's a passion. He and his family have been farming nearly 6,000 acres of land near Ryegate since 1998.
"I enjoy it out here," Wyatt Ramage said.
Their operation centers on winter wheat but often rotates crops.
"We grow several other crops sunflowers, canola, flax feed, barley," Kelly Ramage said.
"I mean, there's probably better ways to make a living than agriculture, but it's what we love to do," Ramage said.
The Ramages say their success on the farm often comes down to something outside the planter and combine — weather. Mother Nature can make or break crops.
"We're very dependent on moisture. There's nothing wrong with our soil types. It's just more so the moisture, so hopefully it's snow on its way and kind of replenish everything," Kelly Ramage said.
This season, things just clicked.
"Fortunately, we're very blessed with big crop this year," Kelly Ramage said.
Father and son are now celebrities of sorts in the world of wheat. The hard work on this farm is a team event.
"It's been pretty fun. Not many people get to do it. I enjoy it quite a bit," Wyatt Ramage said in a response about working alongside his dad.
Kelly Ramage said it takes more than two to run the show.
"There's three or four guys that help us on the farm and then different agronomists help us out and fertilizer guys at Bonnie running the books and my mom cooking at harvest and my dad's out here around," Kelly Ramage said.
