The news continues to be challenging for wheat growers nationally.

"Spring wheat planting is going along at a record slow pace for the 21st century."

USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey noted the national planting number had not hit 50% by Sunday, March 22. Rippey noted normally producers would have 83% in the ground by this time. The when it comes to the winter wheat crop, Rippey says there's not much good news to report.

"There's 28% of the crop really good to excellent."

That's a 1% week-over-week improvement, when it comes to the other end of the spectrum.

"40% very poor to poor. That's a one point improvement from last week's 41%, but still far above last year's 18% very poor to poor."

Worst rating conditions for the crop: Texas. 79% of the wheat in Texas rated poor to very poor.

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