Updated: May 7, 2015 – 1430 CST
KANSAS CITY, Mo., May 7 (Reuters) – The winter wheat crop in Kansas, the top U.S. producer of the grain, should be below average in 2015, reflecting drought, bouts of freezing temperatures and crop diseases, scouts on an annual tour of the state said on Thursday.
Scouts projected production of wheat at 288.5 million bushels, above last year’s official U.S. Department of Agriculture output of 246.4 million bushels but below the five-year crop tour average of 313.6 million bushels.
The tour estimated the average yield at 35.9 bushels per acre (bpa), above USDA’s estimate of last year’s harvest of 28.0 bpa and below the five-year crop tour average of 40.3 bpa.
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“I know it is better than last year, but based on what we have seen, it’s not that much better,” said Jim Shroyer, a retired Kansas State University agronomist who was on the tour.
Kansas’s wheat harvest last year was the smallest since 1989 and the yield the lowest since 1995, USDA data showed. Kansas farmers grow hard red winter wheat, the largest U.S. wheat class, which is milled into flour for bread.
Rains last autumn improved conditions as the 2015 crop was seeded, but a dry winter and early spring took a toll, scouts found. The worst-looking fields, in west-central Kansas, may have suffered from poor root development after germination. A sudden plunge in temperatures last November stunted crops in northwest Kansas, and freeze damage was scattered elsewhere in the state.
“Drought is still the big issue,” Daryl Strouts, chief executive of the Kansas Wheat Alliance, told the Reuters Global Ags Forum on Wednesday.
Rains brought much-needed moisture in recent weeks but also helped spread diseases. Stripe rust, a fungal disease, emerged last month in southeast Kansas and has since spread.
“The big issue in the central corridor of the state, which has the most wheat, is going to be stripe rust,” Shroyer said.
Scouts also noted widespread infections of wheat streak mosaic virus, another disease, in west-central Kansas.
On the positive side, fields in south-central Kansas showed good potential and may help boost the state’s yield average when harvest begins next month.
About 90 crop scouts were on the Wheat Quality Council’s tour, drawn primarily from the grain and milling industries as well as food companies, trading firms, universities and government agencies.
