April showers revived the winter wheat crop across Kansas, so the harvest may be one of the best ever, said crop scouts after a three-day assessment of conditions. They forecast a harvest of 382 million bushels, up 19 percent from 2015, said Bloomberg. The average yield was estimated at 48.6 bushels an acre, compared to the 37 bushels recorded in 2015. Kansas is the top state for growing winter wheat, used in bread and other baked goods, and vies with North Dakota, the top state for spring wheat, as the No. 1 wheat state in the nation.
Some 52 percent of the Kansas wheat crop was in good or excellent condition at the start of May, double the figure last May 1. Bloomberg quoted Ben Handcock of the Wheat Quality Council as saying the crop “has the potential to be one of the best ever … with limited freeze damage and plenty of fungicide applied to prevent disease. Farmers did a very good management job to preserve yield.”
The forecast, based on stops at hundreds of fields, was much larger than expected. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey pegged the crop at 319 million bushels. Separately, traders said they expected a winter wheat crop of 1.37 billion bushels, roughly the same as last year, and an all-wheat total of 1.98 billion bushels, down slightly from 2015, said Bloomberg.