Wheat Plantings Making Ground

Thanks to some warmer weather across the country, winter wheat heading jumped to 54% in the past week.  While that's a noticeable increase, it's still 12% behind the five year average.

“Especially for the hard red winter portion of the crop,” said USDA meteorologist, Brad Rippey.  “Overall 66% good to excellent up two points from last week holding steady at 8% very poor to poor,  far better than last year's drought affected crop

Rippey also noted that hard red portion of the crop is not looking too bad.

“But I should caution that  some of the soft red winter wheat is suffering due to the same wetness in the mid-south and lower mid-west that is causing serious planting delays. So in Ohio for example 32% of the winter wheat crop rated very poor to poor and Michigan at 27%”

Meanwhile when it comes to spring wheat planting, as of Sunday, 70% of the crop is in the ground, compared to just 45% a week ago.

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