Market News & Headlines >> U.S. Winter Wheat Ratings Steady

U.S. winter wheat conditions held steady during the week ended Sunday, with the portion of the crop rated good/excellent at 60%, nearly double the year-earlier level of 31%, USDA said in its weekly Crop Progress report on Monday afternoon. 

Only 9% of the U.S. crop was rated poor/very poor by USDA as of Sunday, down sharply from 37% a year earlier. U.S. crop development lagged normal with only 6% of the crop headed compared with 8% last year and the five-year averaged of 9%. 

Changes in HRW wheat growing states were mixed. Conditions in the top winter wheat growing state of Kansas improved to 59% good/excellent from 58% a week earlier. The good/excellent rating for the Texas crop rose by 4 percentage points to 51%, while the good/excellent rating for the Montana crop shot up by 12 points to 82%. 

However, the good/excellent rating fell by 10 points to 61% for the Colorado crop; declined by 6 points to 68% for the Nebraska crop and fell by 2 points to 74% for the Oklahoma crop. 

Conditions improved in several Midwest SRW wheat states, although they remained poor overall. The good/excellent rating rose by 5 points to 59% for both Illinois and Indiana.  The Missouri crop rating held steady at 40% good/excellent. In Ohio, the good/excellent rating for the wheat crop edged up 4 points to 33%, while in Michigan the rating rose 3 points to 28%.