The latest Drought Monitor shows nearly 75% of the winter wheat acres in the U.S. are in some level of drought. As a result, winter wheat condition ratings this week were well below last year’s 45% good to excellent and were at a record low for this time of year. This was USDA’s first crop rating of the season for winter wheat and the crop came in at only 28% good to excellent, with 35% of the crop rated poor to very poor. The last time they were this low was in the drought year of 2012 at 40% good to excellent.
Randy Martinson with Martinson Ag says, “But we are looking at pretty poor conditions the crop rates at 28% good to excellent, that’s 13% less than expected like you saw a record low for this timeframe, so we’ve got a way to go to dig this crop out of it. 2:38 Of course emergency is still behind the five-year average, planting is still taking place.”
When the ratings are plugged into Pro Farmer’s Crop Condition Index the Hard Red Winter wheat crop starts the growing season with the lowest initial rating ever and the lowest on record for any week ahead of dormancy. In Oklahoma only 11% of the crop is rated good to excellent, only 24% in Kansas, and in Texas only 4% is rated good, with none of the crop in the excellent category.
Martinson says the trade knew how dry the Southern Plains drought was but the poor conditions don’t stop there. “But it’s not just confined to the Southern Plains it’s also hitting the corn belt, the soft red winter as well as the hard red winter wheat.”
The Soft Red Winter Wheat crop starts the growing season with a reading that is 18% below the five-year average. In Illinois the SRW crop is only 35% good to excellent, Ohio is at 55%.
Some rains are forecasted for the Southern Plains later this week but will not be enough to significantly help the winter wheat crop. This comes at a time when USDA is pegging U.S. and global ending stocks for wheat at 15-year lows.
