Widespread rainfall in northwestern Kansas eased arid conditions in the No. 1 winter wheat state as this year’s crop nears maturity, said the weekly Drought Monitor. While some 69 percent of Kansas remains in drought, that’s down 6 percentage points from a week ago. Conditions also improved marginally in Colorado, another winter wheat state, while drought expanded in the Dakotas, where spring-planted wheat is the dominant variety.
In North Dakota, the leading state for durum and other spring wheat, drought covered 53 percent of the state, compared with 47 percent a week earlier. In South Dakota, where winter and spring wheat are grown in equal amounts, 21 percent of the land is in drought, an increase of nearly 5 points in a week. “Across the Dakotas, [drought] areas were generally expanded in coverage, due mostly to recent precipitation deficits,” said the report.
The National Weather Service says that over the next few days, normal or below-normal rainfall is likely in most of the United States. “Most predicted heavy rain areas (1.5-3.0 inches or greater) are expected to be east of the Mississippi River, where little dryness currently exists,” said the Drought Monitor.
The USDA estimates winter wheat production of 270 million bushels in Kansas, down by nearly 20 percent from 2017 because of drought. At the start of this week, 48 percent of the Kansas crop was rated in poor or very poor condition.