Soft Red crops in the Great Lakes region showed notable improvement as the overall condition of the US winter wheat crop took a small step up this past week.
The USDA crop progress report on Monday pegged the American winter wheat crop at 50% good to excellent as of Sunday, up a single point from the previous week and topping the average trade guess of 49% good to excellent. The crop also remains well above last year’s rating of just 29% good to excellent.
The condition of the Soft Red crop in Michigan jumped 6 points on the week to 73% good to excellent, while Ohio crop improved 2 points to 71%.
In the largest production state of Kansas, the Hard Red crop was up a single point on the week at 32% good to excellent but remains well down from its initial weekly rating of 48% at the beginning of April. The Oklahoma crop improved 6 points from the previous week to 52% good to excellent as of Sunday, although that is still down from 73% at the beginning of last month.
An estimated 43% of the American winter wheat crop had reached the heading stage of development as of Sunday, up from 30% a week earlier, 34% last year and 32% on average.
The Kansas crop was already more than half headed (54%), versus only 21% on average, while the Oklahoma crop was 67% headed – 1 point ahead of the state average. No crop was yet reported headed in Michigan, compared to 1% last year, while 5% of the Ohio crop was headed, 3 points ahead of average.
