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Drought adds to SD winter wheat condition decline

Winter wheat conditions continue to decline due to the drought in South Dakota and the CEO of the South Dakota Wheat Commission says more rain is needed.

“The crop is variable.”

Jonathan Kleinjan says it’s still too early to know how the crop will turn out in the spring, but there will be fewer acres planted.

“It’s probably not going be a record crop. We had a record crop this year by quite a margin and we won’t even be close to that.”

USDA says South Dakota’s winter wheat conditions are rated 35% good to excellent, a decline of 9 percentage points from the previous week. Emergence is 66%, behind this time last year.

Soybean harvest is nearing competition at 96% and corn harvest is 78% complete. Sorghum harvest is 81% and sunflower harvest 42% complete.

The National Weather Service in Sioux Falls tells Brownfield very little rain fell across the state over the weekend and while southeast South Dakota has rain in the forecast, no big totals are expected.