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Winter wheat tour begins with bleak outlook for crop

There’s not a lot of optimism on this year’s hard red winter wheat tour.

“It’s not a great picture. It’s a very drought-stressed crop.”

Aaron Harries with the Kansas Wheat Commission says they started in fields north and west of Manhattan. “The highest yield was the first stop of the morning in Geary County northwest of Junction City, and that yield was only 35 bushels per acre and it was downhill from there.”

He tells Brownfield, “And, there was also a lot of noticeable freeze damage in the wheat fields not only from the freeze we had in March but also from a couple of April freeze events.”

USDA says 28 percent of the U.S. crop is rated good-to-excellent, and Harries says he expects widespread variability for the rest of the tour. “In Kansas, we’re only about 19 percent good-to-excellent, maybe even less than that. I definitely have not seen excellent and frankly, not seen good yet.”

The tour will survey crops in other parts of Kansas, southern Nebraska and northern Oklahoma on Wednesday before wrapping up in Manhattan on Thursday.