The U.S. hard red spring wheat crop, a variety used in flour for bread, will yield 45.7 bushels an acre, said crop scouts after a three-day tour of the northern Plains. At that rate, the yield would be on track with the five-year average forecast produced by the crop tour and well below the forecast of 49.9 bushels an acre that scouts calculated at the end of last year’s pre-harvest tour, said Reuters.
Reuters quoted Ben Handcock of the Wheat Quality Council, the sponsor of the tour, as saying, “It’s a good crop, not a record crop like we had the last couple years.”
Early this month, USDA estimated the hard red spring wheat crop at 511 million bushels, down 9 percent from last year, mirroring a similar decline in plantings. Hard red spring accounts for the bulk of spring-planted wheat in the United States. North Dakota is the largest spring wheat state and regularly vies with Kansas to be the top wheat producer.