Fundamentally Speaking

Lowest Initial U.S. Winter Wheat Ratings Ever

Joel Karlin
By  Joel Karlin , DTN Contributing Analyst
Chart by Joel Karlin, DTN Contributing Analyst

USDA released its first condition rating for the 2025 U.S. winter wheat crop on Monday and using our usual ratings system (where we weight the crop based on the percent in each category and assign that category a factor of 2 for very poor, 4 for poor, 6 for fair, 8 for good, and 10 for excellent and then sum) the initial rating comes out to 626.

This is the second worst initial crop condition rating since national data began in 1986 with only the 2023 U.S. winter wheat crop rating of 562 worse.

This chart shows the first fall winter wheat rating for the top 18 producing states and the U.S. for the both the 2024 and 2025 crops along with the 2000-2025 average on the left-hand axis.

Reported on the right-hand axis is the rank of this year's initial winter wheat crop rating with a 1 signifying the best first crop rating since 2000 while a 26 means the worst.

As one would suspect, you can't have the second worst initial U.S. crop rating without a number of the top producing states in the same boat as Arkansas has their lowest rating since 2000 with conditions down 217 points, or 34.3%, from the year ago level.

Both NE and OK have their third worst initial crop rating while KS along with ID, IL and MT and TX have their fourth worst rating.

The fact is that only three states (CA, IN and OR) have their first fall winter wheat rating above the year ago level as not just the Southern and central Plains, where the bulk of HRW is seeded, having problems.

The latest U.S. Drought Monitor is also noting drought throughout Delta and southern Midwest where soft red is planted and up in Great Basin region where white winter is sown.

As we noted earlier in the week, as of the beginning of July, only 20% of the U.S. winter wheat area was in some form of drought but over the past three months the percent in D1-D4 drought has increased to 58%, which other than the fourth week in October 2022 and October 2012, is the highest ever for this time of year.

This highlights the exceptionally dry period much of the Plains and the Corn Belt have endured really since the middle of August though the latest forecasts suggesting good moisture coming up for much of Plains and Corn Belt.

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