winter wheat

Wheat growers sowed 31.2 million acres of winter wheat for harvest this spring, the lowest figure since 1909 for the dominant type of U.S. wheat, according to a survey of farmers by Farm Futures. It would be a declne of 4.5 percent from last year and reflect poor profit potential of the wheat compared to other crops.

A simulation by Texas A&M scientists indicates that winter wheat is a feasible cover crop for cotton growers in the arid Plains, says one of the researchers.

Kansas farmers sharply scaled back winter wheat sowings because of low market prices, assuring a smaller crop this year than last. Now disease, snowfall, and freeze damage this spring are dragging prospects down even further.

For wheat farmers in western Kansas, the heavy snow and freezing temperatures that recently swept through their region were a one-two punch that flattened a promising crop.

For the fifth week in a row, drought has expanded in the winter wheat-growing central and southern U.S. Plains, says USDA's Ag in Drought website. Some 26 percent of winter wheat land is moderate to severe drought, up 2 percentage points in a week.

In the key wheat states of Kansas and Oklahoma, the winter wheat is in significantly poorer condition than it was in late November due to adverse weather in the past month, said Reuters, which compared current ratings with a Nov. 27 report.

One-third of the land growing winter wheat is in drought territory, triple the portion that was affected two months ago, says USDA's Ag in Drought report. Dry conditions are a threat to establishment — and potential yields — of the crop, which is planted in the fall, lies dormant during the winter and is harvested in the spring.

Record-high yields for the winter wheat crop, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. wheat production, will more than offset the smallest wheat plantings in years, says the USDA. With the larger-than-expected harvest, the U.S. wheat stockpile will top 1.1 billion bushels— twice as large as it was three years ago.

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.

Seven dozen crop scouts are to begin a hectic three-day motorized sprint across Kansas today, with the goal to sample roughly 500 fields and produce an estimate of the crop in the nation's No. 1 winter wheat state. Their estimate, expected at midday Thursday, will be the first in a shower of crop forecasts that will run through the fall harvest.

Drought coverage in the United States dropped to a five-and-a-half-year low on March 15, when only 12.4 percent of the contiguous 48 states was affected. The figure climbed to 16.7 percent, an increase of 4.3 points, in the following three weeks, says USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey.

In its first Crop Progress report of the year, the USDA rated 59 percent of the winter wheat crop in good or excellent condition, 15 points higher than a year ago.