Fundamentally Speaking

The USDA's first look at the 2026 U.S. winter wheat crop was not a very pretty one with production pegged at 1.048 billion bushels (bb), about 150 million bushels (mb) below what the trade had expected and down vs the year ago at 1.402 bb.

In fact, this is the lowest U.S. winter wheat crop since 1962. Part of the reason is U.S. winter wheat planted area at 32.41 million acres, other than in 2019 and 2020, is the lowest since 1909 and harvested area at 22.015 million acres is apparently the lowest ever.

The USDA's current 67.9% harvested to planted ratio is the second lowest next to 2023 ever and wheat conditions are now worse than back then so more acres may go unharvested.

As for yield, the 2026 U.S. winter wheat went into dormancy late last fall in decent shape.

But a dry winter and now spring has created severe drought conditions in many HRW states that have decimated the crop.

Last week the USDA pegged this year's winter wheat yield at 47.6 bushels per acre (bpa) which, other than 44.7 bpa in 2022, is the lowest since 2015.

To understand if there may be hope for this crop, we looked at the percent the U.S. winter wheat yield deviates from the 25-year trend using both the May and final estimates and these are plotted on the left-hand axis.

Then, with 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 results) reported on the right-hand axis are the U.S. winter wheat crop ratings around the first of May and again around the first of July, right when harvest is commencing.

This year's crop rating at the beginning of May is 572 which, other than the 2022 and 2023 seasons, is the lowest since 2014.

The projected yield at 47.6 bpa is 8.8% below the 2002-2026 trend, the second lowest for the May estimate since at least 2002.

Back in 2022 the May 1 crop rating was 544 with the May yield estimate 5.2% below trend.

Wheat conditions stayed poor throughout May and June that season with the July 1 rating at 540 and the final yield that season was 7.0% below trend.

A year later, growing conditions improved throughout May and June with the May 1 rating at 538 jumping to 610 by July 1 and the May yield estimate of 12.2% below trend ending up very close to trend by the final report.

Looking back, seeing the U.S. winter wheat crop pull a rabbit out of its hat is usually not the case as a poor looking wheat crop in early May is likely to remain in that shape or worse by harvest.

Certainly, it appears to be the case this year with the 2026 winter wheat crop ratings having deteriorated even further over the past two weeks and this with some decent rainfall totals as current combined 27% good to excellent lowest now since 1996.

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